Other pages tagged with "Wanderings of Cain"http://www.rc.umd.edu/taxonomy/term/5762/all
enVerses 1825 http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/cain/verse1825.html
<div class="field field-name-field-published field-type-date field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth"><span class="date-display-single" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth" content="2003-05-01T00:00:00-04:00">May 2003</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><div class="c1">
<p class="title3">Verses (1825)<br/>
from <i>Aids to Reflection</i> [London: Taylor &amp; Hessey, 1825]<span class="title1"><a href="#note*">*</a></span></p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<div class="c2">Encinctur'd with a twine of Leaves,<br/>
That leafy twine his only Dress!<br/>
A lovely Boy was plucking fruits<br/>
In a moonlight wilderness.<br/>
The Moon was bright, the air was free,<br/>
And Fruits and Flowers together grew<br/>
On many a Shrub and many a Tree:<br/>
And all put on a gentle hue,<br/>
Hanging in the shadowy air<br/>
Like a Picture rich and rare.<br/>
It was a Climate where, they say,<br/>
The Night is more beloved than Day.<br/>
But who that beauteous Boy beguil'd,<br/>
That beauteous Boy! to linger here?<br/>
Alone, by night, a little child,<br/>
In place so silent and so wild&#8212;<br/>
Has he no friend, no loving mother near?</div>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h4>Notes</h4>
<p><a name="note*"> </a><br/></p>
<p><b>*</b> The verse lines were first published in <i>Aids to Reflection</i> (London: Taylor &amp; Hessey,1825), 383. They were inserted to illustrate an allegory in which a pilgrim chances upon an oasis in the form of a garden, "such as in the creations of my youthful fancy I supposed Enos the Child of Cain to have found." The verse lines appear in a footnote; however, the difference to the main text in font size is minimal and therefore this "first stanza" is quite prominent on the page.<br/></p>
<div class="c1">
<hr/>
<p class="c3"><a href="/editions/cain/parallelverse.html">compare to other versions</a></p>
<p class="c3"><a href="#top">return to top</a></p>
</div></div></div></div><section class="field field-name-field-parent-section field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Section:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/node/31535">Electronic Editions</a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-field-resource-index field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Resource:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/editions/cain/index.html">&quot;Wanderings of Cain&quot; </a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-3 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/samuel-taylor-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Samuel Taylor Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1180" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Jack Stillinger</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1354" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Christabel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1479" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Raphael</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5762" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wanderings of Cain</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5763" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Canto II</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5764" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">prose</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5765" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">1797</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5766" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Poetical Works</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5767" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bijou literary annual</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5768" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Aids to Reflection</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5769" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ancient Mariner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5770" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">J.C.C. Mays</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5771" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">versioning</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5772" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">poetical fragment</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/tags/ernest-hartley-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ernest Hartley Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5774" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ghost of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5775" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain: a mystery</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5776" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wandering Jew</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5777" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">British Library manuscripts</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/coleridge-notebook" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Coleridge notebook</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5779" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Valley of Rocks</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5780" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">William Bartram</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5781" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Gessner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5782" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Death of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5783" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain and Abel</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5784" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Enos</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-52 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Section:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/section/editions/the-wanderings-of-cain" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Wanderings of Cain</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-opencalais-city-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">City:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/city/london" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">London</a></li></ul></section>Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:05:46 +0000rc-admin16450 at http://www.rc.umd.eduVerses 1834 http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/cain/stcverses.html
<div class="field field-name-field-published field-type-date field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth"><span class="date-display-single" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth" content="2003-05-01T00:00:00-04:00">May 2003</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><div class="c1">
<p class="title3">Verses (1834)<br/>
<span class="title2">from <b><i>Prefatory Note</i></b><i>.</i> [<i>Poetical Works.</i> London: Pickering, 1834]</span></p>
</div>
<div class="c2">
<p>Encinctured with a twine of leaves,<br/>
That leafy twine his only dress!<br/>
A lovely Boy was plucking fruits,<br/>
By moonlight, in a wilderness.<br/>
The moon was bright, the air was free,<br/>
And fruits and flowers together grew<br/>
On many a shrub and many a tree:<br/>
And all put on a gentle hue,<br/>
Hanging in the shadowy air<br/>
Like a picture rich and rare.<br/>
It was a climate where, they say,<br/>
The night is more belov'd than day.<br/>
But who that beauteous Boy beguil'd,<br/>
That beauteous Boy to linger here?<br/>
Alone, by night, a little child,<br/>
In place so silent and so wild&#8212;<br/>
Has he no friend, no loving mother near?</p>
</div>
<p><a href="/editions/cain/parallelverse.html">compare with other versions</a></p>
<div class="c1">
<p class="c3"><a href="#top">return to top</a></p>
</div></div></div></div><section class="field field-name-field-parent-section field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Section:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/node/31535">Electronic Editions</a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-field-resource-index field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Resource:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/editions/cain/index.html">&quot;Wanderings of Cain&quot; </a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-field-authored-by-primary- field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Authored by (Primary):&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="role:AUT"><a href="/person/coleridge-samuel-taylor">Coleridge, Samuel Taylor</a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-3 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/samuel-taylor-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Samuel Taylor Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1180" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Jack Stillinger</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1354" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Christabel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1479" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Raphael</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5762" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wanderings of Cain</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5763" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Canto II</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5764" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">prose</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5765" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">1797</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5766" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Poetical Works</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5767" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bijou literary annual</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5768" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Aids to Reflection</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5769" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ancient Mariner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5770" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">J.C.C. Mays</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5771" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">versioning</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5772" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">poetical fragment</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/tags/ernest-hartley-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ernest Hartley Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5774" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ghost of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5775" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain: a mystery</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5776" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wandering Jew</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5777" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">British Library manuscripts</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/coleridge-notebook" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Coleridge notebook</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5779" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Valley of Rocks</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5780" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">William Bartram</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5781" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Gessner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5782" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Death of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5783" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain and Abel</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5784" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Enos</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-52 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Section:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/section/editions/the-wanderings-of-cain" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Wanderings of Cain</a></li></ul></section>Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:05:43 +0000rc-admin16448 at http://www.rc.umd.eduVerso - Folio Fragments http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/cain/stcfoliov.html
<div class="field field-name-field-published field-type-date field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth"><span class="date-display-single" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth" content="2003-05-01T00:00:00-04:00">May 2003</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p class="title3">Folio Fragment (Verso)<br/>
<span class="title2">[Manuscript. British Library. Egerton 2800, fol 1v]</span><span class="notes"><a href="#note*"><sup><b>*</b></sup></a></span></p>
<p class="c2">Midnight on the Euphrates. Cedars, palms, pines. Cain discovered sitting on the upper part of the ragged rock, where is cavern overlooking the Euphrates, the moon rising on the horizon. His soliloquy. The beasts are out on the ramp. <strike>He determines to rush out amongst them &amp;</strike> oppose himself <strike>to be destroyed by him.</strike> A <strike>multitude of these beasts come [?] up to him. Walking among the beasts</strike> he hears the screams of a woman &amp; children&#8212;surrounded by tigers. Cain makes a soliloquy debating whether he shall save the woman. Cain advances wishing death&#8212;&amp; the tigers rush off. It proves to be Cain's wife with her two children determined to follow her husband. She prevails upon him at last to tell his story. Cain's wife tells him that her son Enoch was placed suddenly by her side.</p>
<p class="c2">Cain addresses all the elements to cease for a while to persecute him, while he tells his story. He begins with telling her that he had first after his leaving her found out a dwelling in the desart under a juniper tree &amp;c, &amp;c. how he meets in the desart a young man whom upon a nearer approach he perceives to be Abel. <strike>Cain was overwhelmed</strike> on whose countenance appear marks of the greatest misery. He [? tells]<a href="#note1"><b class="notes">[1]</b></a> of another being who had power after this life, greater than Jehovah. He is going to offer sacrifices to this being &amp; persuades Cain to follow him to come to an immense Gulph filled with water, whither they descend followed by alligators &amp;c.<a href="#note2"><b class="notes">[2]</b></a> They go till they come to an immense meadow so surrounded as to be inaccessible, &amp; from its depth so vast that you could not see it from above. Abel offers sacrifice from the blood of his arm. A gleam of light illumines the meadow &amp; <strike>a being of terrible majesty appears</strike>. The countenance of Abel becomes more beautiful, &amp; his arms glistering&#8212;he then persuades Cain to offer sacrifice, for himself &amp; his son Enoch by cutting his child's arm &amp; letting the blood fall from it. Cain is about to do it when Abel himself <strike>walks</strike> in his angelic appearance, attended by Michael, is seen in the heavens whence they sail slowly down. Abel addresses Cain with terror, warning him not to offer up his innocent child. The evil spirit throws off the countenance of Abel &amp; assuming its own shape, flies off pursuing a flying battle with Michael. Abel carries off the Child.</p>
<h4>Notes</h4>
<p><a name="note*" id="note*"> </a></p>
<p><b>[*]</b> Single folio leaf (24.2. x 40 cm). A thin line is drawn across the page after "Enoch was placed suddenly by her side"&#8212;a sentence that may have been written after the line had been drawn. A short line and a cross inside a box indicate the end of the manuscript at the bottom of the page. However, as all critics have noted, the relationship between the separate sections on both sides of the folio and with regards the published texts remains unclear as Canto II and the Verses expand details selected from across the text.</p>
<p><a name="note1" id="note1"> </a></p>
<p><b>[1] [? tells]</b>
variations:</p>
<p>E. H. Coleridge: [ellipsis, not deciphered] (<i>Athenaeum, Poetical Works</i>)<br/>
J. C. C. Mays: "the power"</p>
<p><a name="note2" id="note2"> </a><br/></p>
<p><b>[2] Contextual Note:</b> From <i>The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge</i> II: 2257 [November 1804]</p>
<p>"Earthquake this autumn at Almeria, destroying all but the Church ded. to the Tributary Source with an unfathomable Gulph around it, <i>full of alligators</i> [sic.]"</p>
<p class="c2"><a href="#top">return to top</a></p></div></div></div><section class="field field-name-field-parent-section field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Section:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/node/31535">Electronic Editions</a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-field-resource-index field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Resource:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/editions/cain/index.html">&quot;Wanderings of Cain&quot; </a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-3 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/samuel-taylor-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Samuel Taylor Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1180" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Jack Stillinger</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1354" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Christabel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1479" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Raphael</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5762" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wanderings of Cain</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5763" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Canto II</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5764" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">prose</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5765" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">1797</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5766" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Poetical Works</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5767" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bijou literary annual</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5768" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Aids to Reflection</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5769" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ancient Mariner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5770" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">J.C.C. Mays</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5771" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">versioning</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5772" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">poetical fragment</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/tags/ernest-hartley-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ernest Hartley Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5774" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ghost of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5775" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain: a mystery</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5776" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wandering Jew</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5777" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">British Library manuscripts</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/coleridge-notebook" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Coleridge notebook</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5779" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Valley of Rocks</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5780" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">William Bartram</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5781" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Gessner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5782" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Death of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5783" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain and Abel</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5784" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Enos</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-52 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Section:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/section/editions/the-wanderings-of-cain" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Wanderings of Cain</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-opencalais-naturalfeature-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">NaturalFeature:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/natural-feature/euphrates" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Euphrates</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-opencalais-person-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Person:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/person/cain" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain</a></li></ul></section>Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:05:37 +0000rc-admin16446 at http://www.rc.umd.eduFolio - Folio Fragments http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/cain/stcfolio.html
<div class="field field-name-field-published field-type-date field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth"><span class="date-display-single" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth" content="2003-05-01T00:00:00-04:00">May 2003</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p class="title3">Folio Fragment (Recto)<br/>
<span class="title2">[Manuscript. British Library. Egerton 2800, fol 1]<span><a href="#note*">*</a></span></span></p>
<p class="title2 c2">Book 3rd<span class="title2"><span><a href="#note1"> </a></span></span></p>
<p class="c3">He falls down in a trance. When he awakes he sees a luminous body coming before him. It stands before him an orb of fire. It goes on he moves not. It returns to him again, again retires as if wishing him to follow it. It then goes on &amp; he follows. They are led to <strike>a desert</strike> near the bottom of the rocks, woods, brooks, forests &amp;c &amp;c. The Fire gradually shapes itself, retaining its luminous appearance, on to the lineaments of a man: A dialogue between the fiery shape &amp; Cain, in which the being presses upon Cain the enormity of his guilt, &amp; that he must make some expiation to the true deity, who is a severe God, &amp; persuades him to burn out his eyes. Cain opposes this idea &amp; says that God himself who had inflicted this punishment upon him had done it because he neglected to make a proper use of his senses &amp;c. The evil spirit answers him that God is indeed a God of mercy &amp; <strike>that examples must be given to [?protect]</strike><span><a href="#note1"><b><span class="note">[1]</span></b></a></span> &amp; that [? examples]<span><a href="#note2"><b class="note">[2]</b></a></span> must be given to mankind. That this end will be answered by his terrible appearance at the same time that he will be gratified with the most delicious sights &amp; feelings.</p>
<p class="c3">Cain overpersuaded, consents to do it but wishes to go to the top of the rocks to take a farewell of the earth. His farewell Speech concluding with an abrupt address to the promised redeemer &amp; he abandons the idea on which the being had accompanied him, &amp; turning round to declare this to the being he sees him dancing from rock to rock in his former shape down those interminable precipices.</p>
<hr/>
<div class="c4">
<p class="title2 c2">Cain</p>
<p>Child [? saddened]<a href="#note3"><b><span class="note">[3]</span></b></a> by his father's ravings, goes out to pluck the fruits in the moonlight wildness&#8212;Cain's soliloquy&#8212;Child returns with a pitcher of water &amp; a cake. Cain wonders what kind of beings dwell in that place&#8212;whether any created since man or whether this world had any beings rescued from the Chaos, wandering like shipwrecked beings rescued from the other world.</p>
</div>
<h4>Notes</h4>
<p><a name="note*"> </a></p>
<p><b>*</b> Single folio leaf (24.2 x 40 cm). Heading "Book 3rd." After "those interminable precipices," a line is drawn across the page. Below the line, the word "&lt;Cain&gt;" is inserted between the subsequent text, beginning "Child [?saddened]," and the line. This may be a title, indicating a new start to the poem. J. C. C. Mays reads it as an insert to the line, reading "Child influenced by his father's ravings..."</p>
<p><a name="note1" id="note1"> </a></p>
<p><b>[1] [<s>? protect</s>]</b><br/>
variation:</p>
<p>J. C. C. Mays: "mankind"</p>
<p><a name="note2" id="note2"> </a></p>
<p><b>[2] [? examples]</b><br/>
variation:</p>
<p>J.C.C. Mays: "ills"</p>
<p><a name="note3" id="note3"> </a><br/></p>
<p><b>[3] [? saddened]</b><br/>
variations:</p>
<p>E. H. Coleridge: "af'feared" (<i>Athenaeum</i>); "affeared" (<i>Poetical Works</i>)<br/>
J. C. C. Mays: "influenced"</p>
<p class="c3"><a href="#top">return to top</a></p></div></div></div><section class="field field-name-field-parent-section field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Section:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/node/31535">Electronic Editions</a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-field-resource-index field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Resource:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/editions/cain/index.html">&quot;Wanderings of Cain&quot; </a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-3 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/samuel-taylor-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Samuel Taylor Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1180" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Jack Stillinger</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1354" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Christabel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1479" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Raphael</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5762" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wanderings of Cain</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5763" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Canto II</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5764" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">prose</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5765" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">1797</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5766" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Poetical Works</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5767" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bijou literary annual</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5768" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Aids to Reflection</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5769" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ancient Mariner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5770" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">J.C.C. Mays</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5771" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">versioning</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5772" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">poetical fragment</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/tags/ernest-hartley-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ernest Hartley Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5774" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ghost of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5775" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain: a mystery</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5776" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wandering Jew</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5777" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">British Library manuscripts</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/coleridge-notebook" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Coleridge notebook</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5779" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Valley of Rocks</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5780" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">William Bartram</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5781" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Gessner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5782" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Death of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5783" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain and Abel</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5784" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Enos</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-52 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Section:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/section/editions/the-wanderings-of-cain" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Wanderings of Cain</a></li></ul></section>Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:05:33 +0000rc-admin16444 at http://www.rc.umd.eduVerses 1815 http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/cain/stcbyron.html
<div class="field field-name-field-published field-type-date field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth"><span class="date-display-single" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth" content="2003-05-01T00:00:00-04:00">May 2003</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><div class="c1">
<p class="title3">Verses (1815)<br/>
from <i>Collected Letters</i> [to Lord Byron, 22 October 1815]</p>
</div>
<div class="c2">
<p>Encinctur'd with a twine of Leaves,<br/>
That leafy Twine his only Dress!<br/>
A lovely Boy was plucking fruits<br/>
In a moon-light Wilderness.<br/>
The Moon was bright, the Air was free,<br/>
And Fruits and Flowers together grew<br/>
On many a Shrub and many a Tree:<br/>
And all put on a gentle Hue<br/>
Hanging in the shadowy Air<br/>
Like a Picture rich and rare.<br/>
It was a Climate where, they say,<br/>
The Night is more belov'd than Day.<br/>
But who that beauteous Boy beguil'd,<br/>
That beauteous Boy to linger here?<br/>
Alone, by night, a little child,<br/>
In place so silent and so wild&#8212;<br/>
Has he no <i>Friend</i>, no loving Mother near?</p>
</div>
<p><a href="/editions/cain/parallelverse.html">compare with other versions</a></p>
<div class="c1">
<p class="c3"><a href="#top">return to top</a></p>
</div></div></div></div><section class="field field-name-field-parent-section field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Section:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/node/31535">Electronic Editions</a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-field-resource-index field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Resource:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/editions/cain/index.html">&quot;Wanderings of Cain&quot; </a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-field-authored-by-primary- field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Authored by (Primary):&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="role:AUT"><a href="/person/coleridge-samuel-taylor">Coleridge, Samuel Taylor</a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-3 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/samuel-taylor-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Samuel Taylor Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1180" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Jack Stillinger</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1354" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Christabel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1479" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Raphael</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5762" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wanderings of Cain</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5763" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Canto II</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5764" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">prose</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5765" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">1797</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5766" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Poetical Works</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5767" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bijou literary annual</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5768" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Aids to Reflection</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5769" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ancient Mariner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5770" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">J.C.C. Mays</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5771" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">versioning</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5772" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">poetical fragment</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/tags/ernest-hartley-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ernest Hartley Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5774" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ghost of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5775" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain: a mystery</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5776" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wandering Jew</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5777" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">British Library manuscripts</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/coleridge-notebook" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Coleridge notebook</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5779" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Valley of Rocks</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5780" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">William Bartram</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5781" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Gessner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5782" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Death of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5783" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain and Abel</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5784" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Enos</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-52 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Section:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/section/editions/the-wanderings-of-cain" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Wanderings of Cain</a></li></ul></section>Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:05:31 +0000rc-admin16443 at http://www.rc.umd.eduReading Text http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/cain/readingtext.html
<div class="field field-name-field-published field-type-date field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth"><span class="date-display-single" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth" content="2003-05-01T00:00:00-04:00">May 2003</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><div class="c1">
<p><span class="title3" align="center">Reading Text</span><a class="notes" href="#note1">[1]</a><br/>
<br/></p>
</div>
<table bordercolor="#CCCCCC" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%" border="1">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td class="intro"><i>What follows is a reading text from the fragments that make up the project of</i> The Wanderings of Cain<i>. It is not a reconstruction of the poem or the prose tale, as the work is frozen in time as a project: pre-genre, fragmentary, and rewritten. Instead, the fragments have been collected together in a way that allows them to be read as parts of a single work. This reading text offers access to the various fragments without immediate recourse to their variants and may thus provide a sense of artistic development even in the absence of a finished work.</i></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><span class="title1">Preface</span><a class="notes" href="#note2">[2]</a></p>
<p>A PROSE composition, one not in metre at least, seems prima facie to require explanation or apology. It was written in the year 1798, near Nether Stowey, in Somersetshire, at which place (sanctum et amabile nomen! rich by so many associations and recollections) the author had taken up his residence in order to enjoy the society and close neighbourhood of a dear and honoured friend, T. Poole, Esq.<a href="#note3"><b class="notes">[3]</b></a> The work was to have been written in concert with another,<a href="#note4"><b class="notes">[4]</b></a> whose name is too venerable within the precincts of genius to be unnecessarily brought into connection with such a trifle, and who was then residing at a small distance from Nether Stowey. The title and subject were suggested by myself, who likewise drew out the scheme and the contents for each of the three books or cantos, of which the work was to consist, and which, the reader is to be informed, was to have been finished in one night! My partner undertook the first canto: I the second: and which ever had done first, was to set about the third. Almost thirty years have passed by; yet at this moment I cannot without something more than a smile moot the question which of the two things was the more impracticable, for a mind so eminently original to compose another man's thoughts and fancies, or for a taste so austerely pure and simple to imitate the Death of Abel?<a href="#note5"><b><span class="notes">[5]</span></b></a> Methinks I see his grand and noble countenance as at the moment when having despatched my own portion of the task at full finger-speed, I hastened to him with my manuscript&#8212;that look of humorous despondency fixed on his almost blank sheet of paper, and then its silent mock-piteous admission of failure struggling with the sense of the exceeding ridiculousness of the whole scheme&#8212;which broke up in a laugh: and the Ancient Mariner was
written instead.</p>
<p>Years afterward, however, the draft of the plan and proposed incidents, and the portion executed, obtained favour in the eyes of more than one person, whose judgment on a poetic work could not but have weighed with me, even though no parental partiality had been thrown into the same scale, as a make-weight: and I determined on commencing anew, and composing the whole in stanzas, and made some progress in realizing this intention, when adverse gales drove my bark off the "Fortunate Isles" of the Muses: and then other and more momentous interests prompted a different voyage, to firmer anchorage and a securer port. I have in vain tried to recover the lines from the palimpsest tablet of my memory: and I can only offer the introductory stanza, which had been committed to writing for the purpose of procuring a friend's<a href="#note6"><b class="notes">[6]</b></a> judgment on the metre, as a specimen.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Encinctured with a twine of leaves,<br/>
That leafy twine his only dress!<br/>
A lovely Boy was plucking fruits,<br/>
By moonlight, in a wilderness.<br/>
The moon was bright, the air was free,<br/>
And fruits and flowers together grew<br/>
On many a shrub and many a tree:<br/>
And all put on a gentle hue,<br/>
Hanging in the shadowy air<br/>
Like a picture rich and rare.<br/>
It was a climate where, they say,<br/>
The night is more belov'd than day.<br/>
But who that beauteous Boy beguil'd,<br/>
That beauteous Boy to linger here?<br/>
Alone, by night, a little child,<br/>
In place so silent and so wild&#8212;<br/>
Has he no friend, no loving mother near?</p>
</blockquote>
<hr/>
Child [saddened] by his father's ravings, goes out to pluck the fruits in the moonlight wildness&#8212;Cain's soliloquy&#8212;Child returns with a pitcher of water and a cake. Cain wonders what kind of beings dwell in that place&#8212;whether any created since man or whether this world had any beings rescued from the Chaos, wandering like shipwrecked beings rescued from the other world.<br/>
<br/>
<hr/>
"A little further, O my father, yet a little further, and we shall come into the open moonlight." Their road was through a forest of fir-trees; at its entrance the trees stood at distances from each other, and the path was broad, and the moonlight and the moonlight shadows reposed upon it, and appeared quietly to inhabit that solitude. But soon the path winded and became narrow; the sun at high noon sometimes speckled, but never illumined it, and now it was dark as a cavern.
<p>"It is dark, O my father!" said Enos, "but the path under our feet is smooth and soft, and we shall soon come out into the open moonlight."</p>
<p>"Lead on, my child!" said Cain: "guide me, little child!" And the innocent little child clasped a finger of the hand which had murdered the righteous Abel, and he guided his father. "The fir branches drip upon thee, my son." "Yea, pleasantly, father, for I ran fast and eagerly to bring thee the pitcher and the cake, and my body is not yet cool. How happy the squirrels are that feed on these fir-trees! they leap from bough to bough, and the old squirrels play round their young ones in the nest. I clomb a tree yesterday at noon, O my father, that I might play with them, but they leaped away from the branches, even to the slender twigs did they leap, and in a moment I beheld them on another tree. Why, O my father, would they not play with me? I would be good to them as thou art good to me: and I groaned to them even as thou groanest when thou givest me to eat, and when thou coverest me at evening, and as often as I stand at thy knee and thine eyes look at me?" Then Cain stopped, and stifling his groans he sank to the earth, and the child Enos stood in the darkness beside him.</p>
<p>And Cain lifted up his voice and cried bitterly, and said, "The Mighty One that persecuteth me is on this side and on that; he pursueth my soul like the wind, like the sand-blast he passeth through me; he is around me even as the air! O that I might be utterly no more! I desire to die&#8212;yea, the things that never had life, neither move they upon the earth&#8212;behold! they seem precious to mine eyes. O that a man might live without the breath of his nostrils. So I might abide in darkness, and blackness, and an empty space! Yea, I would lie down, I would not rise, neither would I stir my limbs till I became as the rock in the den of the lion, on which the young lion resteth his head whilst he sleepeth. For the torrent that roareth far off hath a voice: and the clouds in heaven look terribly on me; the Mighty One who is against me speaketh in the wind of the cedar grove; and in silence am I dried up." Then Enos spake to his father, "Arise, my father, arise, we are but a little way from the place where I found the cake and the pitcher." And Cain said, "How knowest thou?" and the child answered&#8212; "Behold the bare rocks are a few of thy strides distant from the forest; and while even now thou wert lifting up thy voice, I heard the echo." Then the child took hold of his father, as if he would raise him: and Cain being faint and feeble rose slowly on his knees and pressed himself against the trunk of a fir, and stood upright and followed the child.</p>
<p>The path was dark till within three strides' length of its termination, when it turned suddenly; the thick black trees formed a low arch, and the moonlight appeared for a moment like a dazzling portal. Enos ran before and stood in the open air; and when Cain, his father, emerged from the darkness, the child was affrighted. For the mighty limbs of Cain were wasted as by fire; his hair was as the matted curls on the bison's forehead, and so glared his fierce and sullen eye beneath: and the black abundant locks on either side, a rank and tangled mass, were stained and scorched, as though the grasp of a burning iron hand had striven to rend them; and his countenance told in a strange and terrible language of agonies that had been, and were, and were still to continue to be.</p>
<p>The scene around was desolate; as far as the eye could reach it was desolate: the bare rocks faced each other, and left a long and wide interval of thin white sand.<a href="#note7"><b><span class="notes">[7]</span></b></a> You might wander on and look round and round, and peep into the crevices of the rocks and discover nothing that acknowledged the influence of the seasons. There was no spring, no summer, no autumn: and the winter's snow, that would have been lovely, fell not on these hot rocks and scorching sands. Never morning lark had poised himself over this desert; but the huge serpent often hissed there beneath the talons of the vulture, and the vulture screamed, his wings imprisoned within the coils of the serpent. The pointed and shattered summits of the ridges of the rocks made a rude mimicry of human concerns, and seemed to prophesy mutely of things that then were not; steeples, and battlements, and ships with naked masts. As far from the wood as a boy might sling a pebble of the brook, there was one rock by itself at a small distance from the main ridge. It had been precipitated there perhaps by the groan which the Earth uttered when our first father fell. Before you approached, it appeared to lie flat on the ground, but its base slanted from its point, and between its point and the sands a tall man might stand upright. It was here that Enos had found the pitcher and cake, and to this place he led his father. But ere they had reached the rock they beheld a human shape: his back was towards them, and they were advancing unperceived, when they heard him smite his breast and cry aloud, "Woe is me! woe is me! I must never die again, and yet I am perishing with thirst and hunger."</p>
<p>Pallid, as the reflection of the sheeted lightning on the heavy-sailing night-cloud, became the face of Cain; but the child Enos took hold of the shaggy skin, his father's robe, and raised his eyes to his father, and listening whispered, "Ere yet I could speak, I am sure, O my father, that I heard that voice. Have not I often said that I remembered a sweet voice? O my father! this is it:" and Cain trembled exceedingly. The voice was sweet indeed, but it was thin and querulous, like that of a feeble slave in misery, who despairs altogether, yet can not refrain himself from weeping and lamentation. And, behold! Enos glided forward, and creeping softly round the base of the rock, stood before the stranger, and looked up into his face. And the Shape shrieked, and turned round, and Cain beheld him, that his limbs and his face were those of his brother Abel whom he had killed! And Cain stood like one who struggles in his sleep because of the exceeding terribleness of a dream.</p>
<p>Thus as he stood in silence and darkness of soul, the Shape fell at his feet, and embraced his knees, and cried out with a bitter outcry, "Thou eldest born of Adam, whom Eve, my mother, brought forth, cease to torment me! I was feeding my flocks in green pastures by the side of quiet rivers, and thou killedst me; and now I am in misery." Then Cain closed his eyes, and hid them with his hands; and again he opened his eyes, and looked around him, and said to Enos, "What beholdest thou? Didst thou hear a voice, my son?" "Yes, my father, I beheld a man in unclean garments, and he uttered a sweet voice, full of lamentation." Then Cain raised up the Shape that was like Abel, and said: &#8212; "The Creator of our father, who had respect unto thee, and unto thy offering, wherefore hath he forsaken thee?" Then the Shape shrieked a second time, and rent his garment, and his naked skin was like the white sands beneath their feet; and he shrieked yet a third time, and threw himself on his face upon the sand that was black with the shadow of the rock, and Cain and Enos sate beside him; the child by his right hand, and Cain by his left. They were all three under the rock, and within the shadow. The Shape that was like Abel raised himself up, and spake to the child: "I know where the cold waters are, but I may not drink, wherefore didst thou then take away my pitcher?" But Cain said, "Didst thou not find favour in the sight of the Lord thy God?" The Shape answered, "The Lord is God of the living only, the dead have another God." Then the child Enos lifted up his eyes and prayed; but Cain rejoiced secretly in his heart. "Wretched shall they be all the days of their mortal life," exclaimed the Shape, "who sacrifice worthy and acceptable sacrifices to the God of the dead; but after death their toil ceaseth. Woe is me, for I was well beloved by the God of the living, and cruel wert thou, O my brother, who didst snatch me away from his power and his dominion." Having uttered these
words, he rose suddenly, and fled over the sands: and Cain said in his heart, "The curse of the Lord is on me; but who is the God of the dead?" and he ran after the Shape, and the Shape fled shrieking over the sands, and the sands rose like white mists behind the steps of Cain, but the feet of him that was like Abel disturbed not the sands. He greatly outrun Cain, and turning short, he wheeled round, and came again to the rock where they had been sitting, and where Enos still stood; and the child caught hold of his garment as he passed by, and he fell upon the ground. And Cain stopped, and beholding him not, said, "he has passed into the dark woods," and he walked slowly back to the rocks; and when he reached it the child told him that he had caught hold of his garment as he passed by, and that the man had fallen upon the ground: and Cain once more sate beside him, and said, "Abel, my brother, I would lament for thee, but that the spirit within me is withered, and burnt up with extreme agony. Now, I pray thee, by thy flocks, and by thy pastures, and by the quiet rivers which thou lovedst, that thou tell me all that thou knowest. Who is the God of the dead? where doth he make his dwelling? what sacrifices are acceptable unto him? for I have offered, but have not been received; I have prayed, and have not been heard; and how can I be afflicted more than I already am?" The Shape arose and answered, "O that thou hadst had pity on me as I will have pity on thee. Follow me, Son of Adam! and bring thy child with thee!"</p>
<p>And they three passed over the white sands between the rocks, silent as the shadows.</p>
<hr/>
He falls down in a trance. When he awakes he sees a luminous body coming before him. It stands before him an orb of fire. It goes on he moves not. It returns to him again, again retires as if wishing him to follow it. It then goes on and he follows. They are led to near the bottom of the rocks, woods, brooks, forests... The Fire gradually shapes itself, retaining its luminous appearance, on to the lineaments of a man: A dialogue between the fiery shape and Cain, in which the being presses upon Cain the enormity of his guilt, and that he must make some expiation to the true deity, who is a severe God, and persuades him to burn out his eyes. Cain opposes this idea and says that God himself who had inflicted this punishment upon him had done it because he neglected to make a proper use of his senses . . . The evil spirit answers him that God is indeed a God of mercy and that examples must be given to mankind. That this end will be answered by his terrible appearance at the same time that he will be gratified with the most delicious sights and feelings.
<p>Cain overpersuaded, consents to do it but wishes to go to the top of the rocks to take a farewell of the earth. His farewell Speech concluding with an abrupt address to the promised redeemer and he abandons the idea on which the being had accompanied him, and turning round to declare this to the being he sees him dancing from rock to rock in his former shape down those interminable precipices.</p>
<hr/>
Midnight on the Euphrates. Cedars, palms, pines. Cain discovered sitting on the upper part of the ragged rock, where is [a] cavern overlooking the Euphrates, the moon rising on the horizon. His soliloquy. The beasts are out on the ramp. He hears the screams of a woman and children&#8212;surrounded by tigers. Cain makes a soliloquy debating whether he shall save the woman. Cain advances wishing death&#8212;and the tigers rush off. It proves to be Cain's wife with her two children determined to follow her husband. She prevails upon him at last to tell his story. Cain's wife tells him that her son Enoch was placed suddenly by her side.
<p>Cain addresses all the elements to cease for a while to persecute him, while he tells his story. He begins with telling her that he had first after his leaving her found out a dwelling in the desart under a juniper tree . . . how he meets in the desart a young man whom upon a nearer approach he perceives to be Abel, on whose countenance appear marks of the greatest misery. He [tells] of another being who had power after this life, greater than Jehovah. He is going to offer sacrifices to this being and persuades Cain to follow him to come to an immense Gulph filled with water, whither they descend followed by alligators . . .<a href="#note8"><b class="notes">[8]</b></a> They go till they come to an immense meadow so surrounded as to be inaccessible, and from its depth so vast that you could not see it from above. Abel offers sacrifice from the blood of his arm. A gleam of light illumines the meadow. The countenance of Abel becomes more beautiful, and his arms glistering&#8212;he then persuades Cain to offer sacrifice, for himself and his son Enoch by cutting his child's arm and letting the blood fall from it. Cain is about to do it when Abel himself in his angelic appearance, attended by Michael, is seen in the heavens whence they sail slowly down. Abel addresses Cain with terror, warning him not to offer up his innocent child. The evil spirit throws off the countenance of Abel and assuming its own shape, flies off pursuing a flying battle with Michael. Abel carries off the Child.</p>
<hr/>
The Child is born, the Child must die<br/>
Among the desert Sands<br/>
And we too all must die of Thirst<br/>
for not a Drop remains. But wither do we retire<br/>
to Heaven or possibility of Heaven<br/>
But this to darkness, Cold, and tho' not positive Torment, yet positive Evil&#8212;Eternal Absence from Communion with the Creator. O how often have the Sands at night roar'd and whitened like a burst of waters<br/>
O that indeed they were! Then full of enthusiastic faith kneels and prays, and in holy frenzy covers the child with sand. In the name of the Father . . .<br/>
&#8212;Twas done<br/>
the Infant died<br/>
the blessed Sand retired, each particle to itself, conglomerating, and shrinking from the profane sand<br/>
the Sands shrank away from it, and left a pit<br/>
still hardening and hardening, at length shot up a fountain large and mighty<br/>
<p>How wide around its Spray, the rain-bow plays upon the Stream and the Spray&#8212;but lo! another brighter, O far far more bright<br/>
it hangs over the head of a glorious Child like a floating veil (vide Raphael's God)&#8212;the Soul arises they drink, and fill their Skins, and depart rejoicing&#8212;O Blessed the day when that good man and all his Company came to Heaven Gate and the Child&#8212;then an angel&#8212;rushed out to receive them&#8212;</p>
<h4>Notes</h4>
<p><a name="note1" id="note1"> </a></p>
<p><b>[1]</b> The sources for this Reading Text are: Preface (1834); Verse (1834); Cain (MS); Canto II (1834); Book 3rd (MS); Folio, verso (MS); Notebook (MS). For full bibliographical information, see the <a href="#" onclick="self.opener.document.location.href='bibliog.html'">Bibliography</a>.<br/></p>
<p><a name="note2" id="note2"> </a></p>
<p><b>[2]</b> For the purpose of this reading text, titles used elsewhere on this site to identify the fragments have been omitted (excluding the Preface). Strikeouts have been removed from the manuscript fragments, and punctuation has been amended accordingly. Where words proved illegible in manuscript, a suggestion has been supplied within square parentheses. Perhaps most significantly, the line-breaks indicated in the notebook fragments have been activated. Again, this was done to draw the texts as close as possible to the absent work that Coleridge was working around. The figure "&amp;c" has been changed to an ellipsis (". . .") to indicate places that are marked for the insertion of additional material without interrupting the text. Also changed is Coleridge's shorthand ampersand to "and," as it would appear in a published text. The Verse fragment has not been juxtaposed with Canto II, as occurs in the 1834 edition of the <i>Poetical Works</i>. However, the brief fragment, "Cain," clearly had a place between the two, referring to both.<br/></p>
<p><a name="note3" id="note3"> </a></p>
<p><b>[3]</b> On the request of his neighbour, Thomas Poole, Coleridge began to write a series of autobiographical letters. One of particular significance with regards <i>The Wanderings of Cain</i> is endorsed 16th October, 1797 [See <i>Griggs</i>, I:353.]. In this letter, Coleridge recounts a childhood fight with his brother Frank over who is the favourite son. The young Coleridge runs at Frank with a knife before running away and spending "a dreadful stormy night" hiding by the river Otter.<br/></p>
<p><a name="note4" id="note4"> </a></p>
<p><b>[4]</b> William Wordsworth, who had recently moved into Alfoxton house in the village of Holford, 3 miles from Nether Stowey, with his sister, Dorothy.<br/></p>
<p><a name="note5" id="note5"> </a></p>
<p><b>[5]</b> Salomon Gessner's <i>The Death of Abel</i> was a great success when it appeared in English translation (by Mary Collyer) in 1761.<br/></p>
<p><a name="note6" id="note6"> </a></p>
<p><b>[6]</b> <b>Contextual Note:</b> S. T. Coleridge to Lord Byron, 22 October 1815 (from <i>Collected Letters</i> iv: 601-06) .</p>
<p>"['Christabel'] is not yet a Whole: and as it will be 5 Books, I meant to publish it by itself: or with another Poem entitled, the Wanderings of Cain &#8212; of which, however, as far as it was written, I have unfortunately lost the only Copy &#8212; and can remember no part distinctly but the first stanza:&#8212;</p>
<blockquote>
<div class="c1">Encinctur'd with a twine of Leaves,<br/>
That leafy Twine his only Dress!<br/>
A lovely Boy was plucking fruits<br/>
In a moon-light Wilderness.<br/>
The Moon was bright, the Air was free,<br/>
And Fruits and Flowers together grew<br/>
On many a Shrub and many a Tree:<br/>
And all put on a gentle Hue<br/>
Hanging in the shadowy Air<br/>
Like a Picture rich and rare.<br/>
It was a Climate where, they say,<br/>
The Night is more belov'd than Day.<br/>
But who that beauteous Boy beguil'd,<br/>
That beauteous Boy to linger here?<br/>
Alone, by night, a little child,<br/>
In place so silent and so wild&#8212;<br/>
Has he no <i>Friend</i>, no loving Mother near?<br/>
<br/></div>
</blockquote>
<p><a name="note7" id="note7"> </a></p>
<p><b>[7]</b> <b>Contextual Note:</b> From William Bartram, <i>Travels in North and South Carolina</i> (2nd ed. London: J. Johnson, 1794). 215-16:</p>
<p>"The morning pleasant, we decamped early: proceeding on, rising gently for several miles, over sandy, gravelly ridges, we found ourselves in an elevated, high, open, airy region, somewhat rocky, on the backs of the ridges, which presented to view, on every side, the most dreary, solitary, desert waste I had ever beheld; groups of bare rocks emerging out of the naked gravel and drifts of white sand; the grass thinly scattered and but few trees [. . .] Next we joyfully entered the borders of the level pine forest and savannahs which continued for many miles, never out of sight of little lakes or ponds, environed with illumined meadows, the clear waters sparkling through the tall pines."<br/></p>
<!-- <p><b>Contextual Note:</b> From Samuel Taylor Coleridge, letter to Joseph Cottle, Early April 1798 (<i>Griggs</i>, 1:242):</p>
<p>". . . we will go on a roam to Linton and Linmouth, which, if thou comest in May, will be in all their pride of woods and waterfalls, not to speak of its august cliffs . . . and the vast valley of stones<a href="/editions/cain/valleyrocks.html"> </a>, all of which live disdainful of the seasons . . ."<a href="/editions/cain/valleyrocks.html"><b>*</b></a><br/></p> -->
<p><a name="note8" id="note8"> </a></p>
<p><b>[8] Contextual Note:</b> From <i>The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge</i> II: 2257 [November 1804]</p>
<p>"Earthquake this autumn at Almeria, destroying all but the Church ded. to the Tributary Source with an unfathomable Gulph around it, <i>full of alligators</i> [sic.]"<br/></p>
<p><a href="#top">return to top</a></p></div></div></div><section class="field field-name-field-parent-section field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Section:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/node/31535">Electronic Editions</a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-field-resource-index field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Resource:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/editions/cain/index.html">&quot;Wanderings of Cain&quot; </a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-3 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/samuel-taylor-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Samuel Taylor Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1180" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Jack Stillinger</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1354" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Christabel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1479" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Raphael</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5762" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wanderings of Cain</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5763" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Canto II</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5764" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">prose</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5765" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">1797</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5766" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Poetical Works</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5767" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bijou literary annual</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5768" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Aids to Reflection</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5769" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ancient Mariner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5770" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">J.C.C. Mays</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5771" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">versioning</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5772" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">poetical fragment</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/tags/ernest-hartley-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ernest Hartley Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5774" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ghost of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5775" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain: a mystery</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5776" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wandering Jew</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5777" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">British Library manuscripts</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/coleridge-notebook" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Coleridge notebook</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5779" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Valley of Rocks</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5780" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">William Bartram</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5781" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Gessner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5782" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Death of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5783" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain and Abel</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5784" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Enos</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-52 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Section:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/section/editions/the-wanderings-of-cain" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Wanderings of Cain</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-opencalais-person-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Person:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/person/t-poole" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">T. Poole</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/person/abel" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Abel</a></li></ul></section>Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:05:12 +0000rc-admin16440 at http://www.rc.umd.eduPrefatory Note http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/cain/preface.html
<div class="field field-name-field-published field-type-date field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth"><span class="date-display-single" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth" content="2003-05-01T00:00:00-04:00">May 2003</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4" width="80%" align="center" border="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<div class="title3 c1" id="container">
Prefatory Note
</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<div class="title2 c2">
[<i>Poetical Works</i>. London: Pickering, 1828]
</div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>
A PROSE composition, one not in metre at least, seems <i>prima facie</i> to
require explanation or apology. It was written in the year 1798, near
Nether Stowey in Somersetshire, at which place (<i>sanctum et amabile
nomen!</i> rich by so many associations and recollections) the Author had
taken up his residence in order to enjoy the society and close
neighbourhood of a dear and honoured friend, T. Poole, Esq.<a href=
"#note1" class="notes">[1]</a>
The work was to have been written in concert with another,<a href=
"#note2" class="notes">[2]</a>
whose name is too venerable within the precincts of genius to be
unnecessarily brought into connection with such a trifle, and who was then
residing at a small distance from Nether Stowey. The title and subject were
suggested by myself, who likewise drew out the scheme and the contents for
each of the three books or cantos, of which the work was to consist, and
which, the reader is to be informed, was to have been finished in one
night! My partner undertook the first canto; I the second: and which ever
had <i>done first,</i> was to set about the third. Almost thirty years have
passed by; yet at this moment I cannot without something more than a smile
moot the question which of the two things was the more impracticable, for a
mind so eminently original to compose another man's thoughts and fancies,
or for a taste so austerely pure and simple to imitate the Death of
Abel?<a href="#note3" class=
"notes">[3]</a> Methinks I see his grand and noble countenance as at the
moment when having dispatched my own portion of the task at full
finger-speed, I hastened to him with my manuscript--that look of humourous
despondency fixed on his almost blank sheet of paper, and then its silent
mock-piteous admission of failure struggling with the sense of the
exceeding ridiculousness of the whole scheme—which broke up in a laugh: and
the Ancient Mariner was written instead.
</p>
<p>
Years afterward, however, the draft of the Plan and proposed Incidents, and
the portion executed, obtained favor in the eyes of more than one person,
whose judgment on a poetic work could not but have weighed with me, even
though no parental partiality had been thrown into the same scale, as a
make-weight: and I determined on commencing anew, and composing the whole
in stanzas, and made some progress in realizing this intention, when
adverse gales drove my bark off the "Fortunate Isles" of the Muses; and
then other and more momentous interests prompted a different voyage, to
firmer anchorage and a securer port. I have in vain tried to recover the
lines from the Palimpsest tablet of my memory: and I can only offer the
introductory stanza, which had been committed to writing for the purpose of
procuring a friend's<a href="#note4"
class="notes">[4]</a> judgment on the metre, as a specimen.
</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
Encinctured with a twine of leaves,<br />
That leafy twine his only dress!<br />
A lovely Boy was plucking fruits,<br />
By moonlight, in a wilderness.<br />
The morn was bright, the air was free,<br />
And fruits and flowers together grew<br />
On many a shrub and many a tree:<br />
And all put on a gentle hue,<br />
Hanging in the shadowy air<br />
Like a picture rich and rare.<br />
It was a climate where, they say,<br />
The night is more belov'd than day.<br />
But who that beauteous Boy beguil'd,<br />
That beauteous Boy to linger here?<br />
Alone, by night, a little child,<br />
In place so silent and so wild—<br />
Has he no friend, no loving Mother near?
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
I have here given the birth, parentage, and premature decease of the
"Wanderings of Cain, a poem," — intreating, however, my Readers not to
think so meanly of my judgment as to suppose that I either regard or offer
it as any excuse for the publication of the following fragment, (and I may
add, of one or two others in its neighbourhood) in its primitive crudity.
But I should find still greater difficulty in forgiving myself, were I to
record pro <i>taedio</i> publico a set of petty mishaps and annoyances
which I myself wish to forget. I must be content therefore with assuring
the friendly Reader, that the less he attributes its appearance to the
Author's will, choice, or judgment, the nearer to the truth he will
be.<a href="#note5" class=
"notes">[5]</a>
</p>
<p class="c3">
S. T. Coleridge.
</p>
<h4>Notes</h4>
<p><a name="note1" id="note1"> </a></p>
<p><b>[1]</b> On the request of his neighbour, Thomas Poole, Coleridge began to write a series of autobiographical letters. One of particular significance with regards <i>The Wanderings of Cain</i> is endorsed 16th October, 1797 [See <i>Griggs</i>, I:353.]. In this letter, Coleridge recounts a childhood fight with his brother Frank over who is the favourite son. The young Coleridge runs at Frank with a knife before running away and spending "a dreadful stormy night" hiding by the river Otter.</p>
<p><a name="note2" id="note2"> </a></p>
<p><b>[2]</b> William Wordsworth, who had recently moved into Alfoxton house in the village of Holford, 3 miles from Nether Stowey, with his sister, Dorothy.</p>
<p><a name="note3" id="note3"> </a></p>
<p><b>[3]</b> Salomon Gessner's, <i>The Death of Abel</i> was a great success when it appeared in English translation (by Mary Collyer) in 1761.</p>
<a name="note4" id="note4"></a>
<p><b>[4]</b> <b>Contextual Note:</b> S. T. Coleridge to Lord Byron, 22 October 1815 (from <i>Collected Letters</i> iv: 601-06) .</p>
<p>"['Christabel'] is not yet a Whole: and as it will be 5 Books, I meant to publish it by itself: or with another Poem entitled, the Wanderings of Cain &#8212; of which, however, as far as it was written, I have unfortunately lost the only Copy &#8212; and can remember no part distinctly but the first stanza:&#8212;</p>
<blockquote>
<div class="c1">Encinctur'd with a twine of Leaves,<br/>
That leafy Twine his only Dress!<br/>
A lovely Boy was plucking fruits<br/>
In a moon-light Wilderness.<br/>
The Moon was bright, the Air was free,<br/>
And Fruits and Flowers together grew<br/>
On many a Shrub and many a Tree:<br/>
And all put on a gentle Hue<br/>
Hanging in the shadowy Air<br/>
Like a Picture rich and rare.<br/>
It was a Climate where, they say,<br/>
The Night is more belov'd than Day.<br/>
But who that beauteous Boy beguil'd,<br/>
That beauteous Boy to linger here?<br/>
Alone, by night, a little child,<br/>
In place so silent and so wild&#8212;<br/>
Has he no <i>Friend</i>, no loving Mother near?<br/>
<br/></div>
</blockquote>
<p><a name="note5" id="note5"> </a></p>
<p><b>[5]</b> This final paragraph was removed from the Preface in <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1834.</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table></div></div></div><section class="field field-name-field-parent-section field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Section:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/node/31535">Electronic Editions</a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-field-resource-index field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Resource:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/editions/cain/index.html">&quot;Wanderings of Cain&quot; </a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-3 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/samuel-taylor-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Samuel Taylor Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1180" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Jack Stillinger</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1354" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Christabel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1479" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Raphael</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5762" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wanderings of Cain</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5763" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Canto II</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5764" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">prose</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5765" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">1797</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5766" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Poetical Works</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5767" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bijou literary annual</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5768" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Aids to Reflection</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5769" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ancient Mariner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5770" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">J.C.C. Mays</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5771" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">versioning</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5772" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">poetical fragment</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/tags/ernest-hartley-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ernest Hartley Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5774" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ghost of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5775" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain: a mystery</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5776" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wandering Jew</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5777" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">British Library manuscripts</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/coleridge-notebook" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Coleridge notebook</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5779" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Valley of Rocks</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5780" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">William Bartram</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5781" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Gessner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5782" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Death of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5783" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain and Abel</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5784" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Enos</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-52 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Section:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/section/editions/the-wanderings-of-cain" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Wanderings of Cain</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-opencalais-person-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Person:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/person/t-poole" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">T. Poole</a></li></ul></section>Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:05:06 +0000rc-admin16437 at http://www.rc.umd.eduVerse - Parallel Texts - Wanderings of Cain http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/cain/parallelverse.html
<div class="field field-name-field-published field-type-date field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth"><span class="date-display-single" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth" content="2003-05-01T00:00:00-04:00">May 2003</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span class="title3">Parallel Texts: Verse</span></p>
<table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2">
<tr bgcolor="#660000" valign="top">
<td>
<div class="c2">
<table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="5">
<tr>
<td width="33%" valign="top" align="left" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div class="c1">
<p>from <i>Collected Letters</i> (to Lord Byron, 22 October 1815)</p>
<p><b>Encinctur'd</b> with a twine of <b>Leaves</b>,<br/>
That leafy <b>Twine</b> his only <b>Dress</b>!<br/>
A lovely Boy was plucking <b>fruits</b><br/>
<b>In a moon-light Wilderness.</b><br/>
The <b>Moon</b> was bright, the <b>Air</b> was free,<br/>
And <b>Fruits</b> and <b>Flowers</b> together grew<br/>
On many a <b>Shrub</b> and many a <b>Tree</b>:<br/>
And all put on a gentle <b>Hue</b><br/>
Hanging in the shadowy <b>Air</b><br/>
Like a <b>Picture</b> rich and rare.<br/>
It was a <b>Climate</b> where, they say,<br/>
The <b>Night</b> is more <b>belov'd</b> than <b>Day</b>.<br/>
But who that beauteous Boy beguil'd,<br/>
That beauteous <b>Boy</b> to linger here?<br/>
Alone, by night, a little child,<br/>
In place so silent and so wild&#8212;<br/>
Has he no <b><i>Friend</i></b>, no loving <b>Mother</b> near?<br/>
<br/></p>
</div>
</td>
<td width="33%" valign="top" align="left" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<p>from <i>Aids to Reflection</i><br/>
(London: Taylor &amp; Hessey, 1825)</p>
<p><b>Encinctur'd</b> with a twine of <b>Leaves</b>,<br/>
That leafy <b>twine</b> his only <b>Dress</b>!<br/>
A lovely Boy was plucking <b>fruits</b><br/>
<b>In a moonlight wilderness.</b><br/>
The <b>Moon</b> was bright, the <b>air</b> was free,<br/>
And <b>Fruits</b> and <b>Flowers</b> together grew<br/>
On many a <b>Shrub</b> and many a <b>Tree</b>:<br/>
And all put on a gentle <b>hue,</b><br/>
Hanging in the shadowy <b>air</b><br/>
Like a <b>Picture</b> rich and rare.<br/>
It was a <b>Climate</b> where, they say,<br/>
The <b>Night</b> is more <b>beloved</b> than <b>Day</b>.<br/>
But who that beauteous Boy beguil'd,<br/>
That beauteous <b>Boy!</b> to linger here?<br/>
Alone, by night, a little child,<br/>
In place so silent and so wild&#8212;<br/>
Has he no <b>friend</b>, no loving <b>mother</b> near?<br/>
<br/></p>
</td>
<td width="33%" valign="top" align="left" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<p>from "Prefatory Note," <i>Poetical Works</i> (London: Pickering, 1834)</p>
<p><b>Encinctured</b> with a twine of <b>leaves</b>,<br/>
That leafy <b>twine</b> his only <b>dress</b>!<br/>
A lovely Boy was plucking <b>fruits,</b><br/>
<b>By moonlight, in a wilderness.</b><br/>
The <b>moon</b> was bright, the <b>air</b> was free,<br/>
And <b>fruits</b> and <b>flowers</b> together grew<br/>
On many a <b>shrub</b> and many a <b>tree</b>:<br/>
And all put on a gentle <b>hue,</b><br/>
Hanging in the shadowy <b>air</b><br/>
Like a <b>picture</b> rich and rare.<br/>
It was a <b>climate</b> where, they say,<br/>
The <b>night</b> is more <b>belov'd</b> than <b>day</b>.<br/>
But who that beauteous Boy beguil'd,<br/>
That beauteous <b>Boy</b> to linger here?<br/>
Alone, by night, a little child,<br/>
In place so silent and so wild&#8212;<br/>
Has he no <b>friend</b>, no loving <b>mother</b> near?<br/>
<br/></p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div></div></div><section class="field field-name-field-parent-section field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Section:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/node/31535">Electronic Editions</a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-field-resource-index field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Resource:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/editions/cain/index.html">&quot;Wanderings of Cain&quot; </a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-field-authored-by-primary- field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Authored by (Primary):&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="role:AUT"><a href="/person/coleridge-samuel-taylor">Coleridge, Samuel Taylor</a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-3 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/samuel-taylor-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Samuel Taylor Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1180" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Jack Stillinger</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1354" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Christabel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1479" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Raphael</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5762" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wanderings of Cain</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5763" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Canto II</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5764" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">prose</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5765" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">1797</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5766" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Poetical Works</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5767" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bijou literary annual</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5768" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Aids to Reflection</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5769" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ancient Mariner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5770" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">J.C.C. Mays</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5771" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">versioning</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5772" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">poetical fragment</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/tags/ernest-hartley-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ernest Hartley Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5774" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ghost of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5775" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain: a mystery</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5776" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wandering Jew</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5777" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">British Library manuscripts</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/coleridge-notebook" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Coleridge notebook</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5779" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Valley of Rocks</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5780" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">William Bartram</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5781" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Gessner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5782" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Death of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5783" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain and Abel</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5784" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Enos</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-52 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Section:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/section/editions/the-wanderings-of-cain" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Wanderings of Cain</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-opencalais-city-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">City:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/city/london" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">London</a></li></ul></section>Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:05:01 +0000rc-admin16435 at http://www.rc.umd.eduCanto II - Parallel Texts - Wanderings of Cain http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/cain/parallelcanto2.html
<div class="field field-name-field-published field-type-date field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth"><span class="date-display-single" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth" content="2003-05-01T00:00:00-04:00">May 2003</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span class="title3">Parallel Texts: Canto II</span><br/></p>
<table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#660000" align="center">
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="33%" height="100%">
<table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" height="100%">
<tr valign="top">
<td>
<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="2">
<tr valign="top">
<td><i><b>Poetical Works</b></i> <b>(1828)</b></td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td>"A little further, O my father, yet a little further, and we shall come into the open <b>moonlight:</b><b>"</b> Their road was through a forest of fir-trees; at its entrance the trees stood at distances from each other, and the path was broad, and the <b>moonlight,</b> and the moonlight shadows reposed upon it, and appeared quietly to inhabit that solitude. But soon the path winded and became narrow; the sun at high noon sometimes speckled, but never illumined it, and now it was dark as a cavern.</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td>"It is dark, O my father!" said Enos, "but the path under our feet is smooth and soft, and we shall soon come out into the open moonlight."</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td><br/>
<br/>
"<b>Lead on, my child!" said Cain:</b> "guide me, little <b>child!</b>" And the innocent little child clasped a finger of the hand which had murdered the righteous Abel, and he guided his father. "The fir branches drip upon <b>thee,</b> my son." "Yea, pleasantly, father, for I ran fast and eagerly to bring thee the pitcher and the cake, and my body is not yet cool. How happy the squirrels are that feed on these <b>fir trees</b>! they leap from bough to bough, and the old squirrels play round their young ones in the nest. I clomb a tree yesterday at noon, O my father, that I might play with them, but they <b>leapt</b> away from the branches, even to the slender twigs did they leap, and in a moment I beheld them on another tree. Why, O my father, would they not play with me? I would be good to them as thou art good to me: and I groaned to them even as thou groanest when thou givest me to eat, and when thou coverest me at evening, and as often as I stand at thy knee and thine eyes look at me?" Then Cain stopped, and stifling his <b>groans</b> he sank to the earth, and the child Enos stood in the darkness beside him.</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td><b>And</b> Cain lifted up his <b>voice</b> and cried bitterly, and said, "The Mighty One that persecuteth me is on this side and on that; he pursueth my soul like the wind, like the sand-blast he passeth through me; he is around me even as the <b>air!</b> O that I might be utterly no more! I desire to die&#8212;yea, the things that never had life, neither move they upon the earth&#8212;<b>behold!</b> they seem precious to mine eyes. O that a man might live without the breath of his <b>nostrils. So</b> I might abide in <b>darkness,</b> and blackness, and an empty space! Yea, I would lie down, I would not rise, neither would I stir my limbs till I became as the rock in the den of the lion, on which the young lion resteth his head whilst he sleepeth. For the torrent that roareth far off hath a <b>voice;</b> and the clouds in heaven look terribly on me; the <b>mighty one</b> who is against me speaketh in the wind of the cedar grove; and in silence am I dried up." Then Enos spake to his father, "<b>Arise</b> my father, arise, we are but a little way from the place where I found the cake and the <b>pitcher." And</b> Cain said, "How knowest thou?" and the child answered&#8212;"<b>Behold</b> the bare rocks are a few of thy strides distant from the forest; and while even now thou wert lifting up thy voice, I heard the echo." Then the child took hold of his father, as if he would raise <b>him:</b> and Cain being faint and feeble rose slowly on his knees and pressed himself against the trunk of a fir, and stood upright and followed the child.</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td><b>The</b> path was dark till within three strides' length of its <b>termination,</b> when it turned suddenly; the thick black trees formed a low arch, and the moonlight appeared for a moment like a dazzling portal. Enos ran before and stood in the open air; and when Cain, his father, emerged from the <b>darkness,</b> the child was <b>affrighted. For</b> the mighty limbs of Cain were wasted as by fire; his hair was as the matted curls on the <b>Bison's</b> forehead, and so glared his fierce and sullen eye beneath: and the black abundant locks on either side, a rank and tangled mass, were stained and scorched, as though the grasp of a burning iron hand had striven to rend them; and his countenance told in a strange and terrible language of agonies that had been, and were, and were still to continue to be.</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td>The scene around was desolate; as far as the eye could <b>reach</b> it was <b>desolate:</b> the bare rocks faced each other, and left a long and wide interval of <b>thin</b> white sand. You might wander on and look round and round, and peep into the crevices of the <b>rocks</b> and discover nothing that acknowledged the influence of the seasons. There was no spring, no summer, no <b>autumn:</b> and the winter's <b>snow,</b> that would have been lovely, fell not on these hot rocks and scorching sands. Never morning lark had poised himself over this desert; but the huge serpent often hissed there beneath the talons of the vulture, and the vulture screamed, his wings imprisoned within the coils of the serpent. The pointed and shattered summits of the ridges of the rocks made a rude mimicry of human concerns, and seemed to <b>prophecy</b> mutely of things that then were not; steeples, and battlements, and ships with naked masts. As far from the wood as a boy might sling a pebble of the brook, there was one rock by itself at a small distance from the main ridge. It had been precipitated there perhaps by the groan <b>which</b> the <b>Earth uttered</b> when our first father fell. Before you approached, it appeared to lie flat on the ground, but its base slanted from its point, and between its <b>point</b> and the sands a tall man might stand upright. It was here that Enos had found the pitcher and cake, and to this place he led his father. But ere they <b>had reached the rock</b> they beheld a human <b>shape:</b> his back was towards them, and they were <b>advancing unperceived,</b> when they heard him smite his breast and cry aloud, "<b>Wo,</b> is me! <b>wo,</b> is me! I must never die again, and yet I am perishing with thirst and hunger."</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td>Pallid, as the reflection of the sheeted lightning on the heavy-sailing <b>Night-cloud</b>, became the face of Cain; but the child Enos took hold of the shaggy skin, his <b>Father's</b> robe, and raised his eyes to his <b>Father</b>, and listening whispered, "Ere yet I could speak, I am sure, O my father, that I heard that voice. Have not I often said that I remembered a sweet <b>voice.</b> O my father! this is <b>it:</b>" and Cain trembled exceedingly. The voice was sweet indeed, but it was thin and <b>querulous like</b> that of a feeble slave in misery, who despairs altogether, yet can not refrain himself from weeping and lamentation. <b>And, behold! Enos glided</b> forward, and creeping softly round the base of the rock, stood before the stranger, and looked up into his face. And the Shape shrieked, and turned round, and Cain beheld him, that his limbs and his face were those of his brother <b>ABEL</b> whom he had <b>killed! And</b> Cain stood like one who struggles in his sleep because of the exceeding terribleness of a dream.</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td>Thus as he stood in silence and darkness of <b>Soul</b>, the <b>SHAPE</b> fell at his feet, and embraced his knees, and cried out with a bitter outcry, "Thou eldest born of Adam, whom Eve, my mother, brought forth, cease to torment me! I was feeding my flocks in green pastures by the side of quiet rivers, and thou killedst me; and now I am in misery." Then Cain closed his eyes, and hid them with his <b>hands;</b> and again he opened his eyes, and looked around him, and said to <b>Enos,</b> "What beholdest thou? Didst thou hear a <b>voice</b> my son?" "Yes, my father, I beheld a man in unclean garments, and he uttered a sweet voice, full of lamentation." Then Cain raised up the <b>Shape</b> that was like Abel, and <b>said.</b> "The <b>Creator</b> of our father, who had respect unto thee, and unto thy offering, wherefore hath he forsaken thee?" Then the Shape shrieked a second time, and rent his garment, and his naked skin was like the white sands beneath their feet; and he shrieked yet a third time, and threw himself on his face upon the sand that was black with the shadow of the rock, and Cain and Enos sate beside him; the child by his right hand, and Cain by his left. They were all three under the rock, and within the shadow. The Shape that was like Abel raised himself up, and spake to the <b>child;</b> "I know where the cold waters <b>are</b> but I may not drink, wherefore didst thou then take away my pitcher?" But Cain said, "Didst thou not find favour in the sight of the Lord thy God?" The Shape answered, "The Lord is God of the living only, the dead have another God." Then the child Enos lifted up his eyes and prayed; but Cain rejoiced secretly in his heart. "Wretched shall they be all the days of their mortal life," exclaimed the Shape, "who sacrifice worthy and acceptable sacrifices to the God of the dead; but after death their toil ceaseth. Woe is me, for I was well beloved by the God of the living, and cruel wert thou, O my brother, who didst snatch me
away from his power and his dominion." Having uttered these words, he rose suddenly, and fled over the <b>sands;</b> and Cain said in his heart, "The curse of the Lord is on <b>me;</b> but who is the God of the dead?" and he ran after the Shape, and the Shape fled shrieking over the sands, and the sands rose like white mists behind the steps of Cain, but the feet of him that was like Abel disturbed not the sands. He greatly outrun Cain, and turning short, he wheeled round, and came again to the rock where they had been sitting, and where Enos still stood; and the <b>child</b> caught hold of his garment as he passed by, and he fell upon the <b>ground. And</b> Cain stopped, and beholding him not, said, "he has passed into the dark woods," and <b>he</b> walked slowly back to the <b>rocks;</b> and when he reached it the child told him that he had caught hold of his garment as he passed by, and that the man had fallen upon the <b>ground;</b> and Cain once more <b>sat</b> beside him, and <b>said,</b> "Abel, my brother, I would lament for thee, but that the spirit within me is withered, and burnt up with extreme agony. Now, I pray thee, by thy <b>flocks,</b> and by thy pastures, and by the quiet rivers which thou <b>lovedst</b>, that thou tell me all that thou knowest. Who is the God of the dead? where doth he make his dwelling? what sacrifices are acceptable unto him? for I have offered, but have not been received; I have prayed, and have not been heard; and how can I be afflicted more than I already am?" The Shape arose and <b>answered,</b> "O that thou hadst had pity on me as I will have pity on thee. Follow me, <b>Son</b> of Adam! and bring thy child with <b>thee!</b>"</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td>And they three passed over the white sands between the rocks, silent as <b>the</b> shadows.</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td><i><b>Poetical Works</b></i> <b>(1828)</b></td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
<td valign="top" width="33%" height="100%">
<table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4" height="100%">
<tr bgcolor="#FFFFFF" valign="top">
<td width="33%">
<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="2">
<tr valign="top">
<td><i><b>Poetical Works</b></i> <b>(1828)</b></td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td>"A little further, O my father, yet a little further, and we shall come into the open <b>moonlight."</b> Their road was through a forest of fir-trees; at its entrance the trees stood at distances from each other, and the path was broad, and the <b>moonlight</b> and the moonlight shadows reposed upon it, and appeared quietly to inhabit that solitude. But soon the path winded and became narrow; the sun at high noon sometimes speckled, but never illumined it, and now it was dark as a cavern.</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td>"It is dark, O my father!" said Enos, "but the path under our feet is smooth and soft, and we shall soon come out into the open moonlight."</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td><br/>
<br/>
"<b>Lead on, my child!" said Cain:</b> "guide me, little <b>child!</b>" And the innocent little child clasped a finger of the hand which had murdered the righteous Abel, and he guided his father. "The fir branches drip upon <b>thee,</b> my son." "Yea, pleasantly, father, for I ran fast and eagerly to bring thee the pitcher and the cake, and my body is not yet cool. How happy the squirrels are that feed on these <b>fir-trees</b>! they leap from bough to bough, and the old squirrels play round their young ones in the nest. I clomb a tree yesterday at noon, O my father, that I might play with them, but they <b>leaped</b> away from the branches, even to the slender twigs did they leap, and in a moment I beheld them on another tree. Why, O my father, would they not play with me? I would be good to them as thou art good to me: and I groaned to them even as thou groanest when thou givest me to eat, and when thou coverest me at evening, and as often as I stand at thy knee and thine eyes look at me?" Then Cain stopped, and stifling his <b>groans</b> he sank to the earth, and the child Enos stood in the darkness beside him.</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td><b>And</b> Cain lifted up his <b>voice</b> and cried bitterly, and said, "The Mighty One that persecuteth me is on this side and on that; he pursueth my soul like the wind, like the sand-blast he passeth through me; he is around me even as the <b>air!</b> O that I might be utterly no more! I desire to die&#8212;yea, the things that never had life, neither move they upon the earth&#8212;<b>behold!</b> they seem precious to mine eyes. O that a man might live without the breath of his <b>nostrils. So</b> I might abide in <b>darkness,</b> and blackness, and an empty space! Yea, I would lie down, I would not rise, neither would I stir my limbs till I became as the rock in the den of the lion, on which the young lion resteth his head whilst he sleepeth. For the torrent that roareth far off hath a <b>voice:</b> and the clouds in heaven look terribly on me; the <b>Mighty One</b> who is against me speaketh in the wind of the cedar grove; and in silence am I dried up." Then Enos spake to his father, "<b>Arise,</b> my father, arise, we are but a little way from the place where I found the cake and the <b>pitcher." And</b> Cain said, "How knowest thou?" and the child answered&#8212;"<b>Behold</b> the bare rocks are a few of thy strides distant from the forest; and while even now thou wert lifting up thy voice, I heard the echo." Then the child took hold of his father, as if he would raise <b>him:</b> and Cain being faint and feeble rose slowly on his knees and pressed himself against the trunk of a fir, and stood upright and followed the child.</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td><b>The</b> path was dark till within three strides' length of its <b>termination,</b> when it turned suddenly; the thick black trees formed a low arch, and the moonlight appeared for a moment like a dazzling portal. Enos ran before and stood in the open air; and when Cain, his father, emerged from the <b>darkness,</b> the child was <b>affrighted. For</b> the mighty limbs of Cain were wasted as by fire; his hair was as the matted curls on the <b>bison's</b> forehead, and so glared his fierce and sullen eye beneath: and the black abundant locks on either side, a rank and tangled mass, were stained and scorched, as though the grasp of a burning iron hand had striven to rend them; and his countenance told in a strange and terrible language of agonies that had been, and were, and were still to continue to be.</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td>The scene around was desolate; as far as the eye could <b>reach</b> it was <b>desolate:</b> the bare rocks faced each other, and left a long and wide interval of <b>thin</b> white sand. You might wander on and look round and round, and peep into the crevices of the <b>rocks</b> and discover nothing that acknowledged the influence of the seasons. There was no spring, no summer, no <b>autumn:</b> and the winter's <b>snow,</b> that would have been lovely, fell not on these hot rocks and scorching sands. Never morning lark had poised himself over this desert; but the huge serpent often hissed there beneath the talons of the vulture, and the vulture screamed, his wings imprisoned within the coils of the serpent. The pointed and shattered summits of the ridges of the rocks made a rude mimicry of human concerns, and seemed to <b>prophesy</b> mutely of things that then were not; steeples, and battlements, and ships with naked masts. As far from the wood as a boy might sling a pebble of the brook, there was one rock by itself at a small distance from the main ridge. It had been precipitated there perhaps by the groan <b>which</b> the <b>Earth uttered</b> when our first father fell. Before you approached, it appeared to lie flat on the ground, but its base slanted from its point, and between its <b>point</b> and the sands a tall man might stand upright. It was here that Enos had found the pitcher and cake, and to this place he led his father. But ere they <b>had reached the rock</b> they beheld a human <b>shape:</b> his back was towards them, and they were <b>advancing unperceived,</b> when they heard him smite his breast and cry aloud, "<b>Woe</b> is me! <b>woe</b> is me! I must never die again, and yet I am perishing with thirst and hunger."</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td>Pallid, as the reflection of the sheeted lightning on the heavy-sailing <b>night-cloud</b>, became the face of Cain; but the child Enos took hold of the shaggy skin, his <b>father's</b> robe, and raised his eyes to his <b>father</b>, and listening whispered, "Ere yet I could speak, I am sure, O my father, that I heard that voice. Have not I often said that I remembered a sweet <b>voice?</b> O my father! this is <b>it:</b>" and Cain trembled exceedingly. The voice was sweet indeed, but it was thin and <b>querulous, like</b> that of a feeble slave in misery, who despairs altogether, yet can not refrain himself from weeping and lamentation. <b>And, behold! Enos glided</b> forward, and creeping softly round the base of the rock, stood before the stranger, and looked up into his face. And the Shape shrieked, and turned round, and Cain beheld him, that his limbs and his face were those of his brother <b>Abel</b> whom he had <b>killed! And</b> Cain stood like one who struggles in his sleep because of the exceeding terribleness of a dream.</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td>Thus as he stood in silence and darkness of <b>soul</b>, the <b>Shape</b> fell at his feet, and embraced his knees, and cried out with a bitter outcry, "Thou eldest born of Adam, whom Eve, my mother, brought forth, cease to torment me! I was feeding my flocks in green pastures by the side of quiet rivers, and thou killedst me; and now I am in misery." Then Cain closed his eyes, and hid them with his <b>hands;</b> and again he opened his eyes, and looked around him, and said to <b>Enos,</b> "What beholdest thou? Didst thou hear a <b>voice,</b> my son?" "Yes, my father, I beheld a man in unclean garments, and he uttered a sweet voice, full of lamentation." Then Cain raised up the <b>Shape</b> that was like Abel, and <b>said: &#8212;</b> "The <b>Creator</b> of our father, who had respect unto thee, and unto thy offering, wherefore hath he forsaken thee?" Then the Shape shrieked a second time, and rent his garment, and his naked skin was like the white sands beneath their feet; and he shrieked yet a third time, and threw himself on his face upon the sand that was black with the shadow of the rock, and Cain and Enos sate beside him; the child by his right hand, and Cain by his left. They were all three under the rock, and within the shadow. The Shape that was like Abel raised himself up, and spake to the <b>child:</b> "I know where the cold waters <b>are,</b> but I may not drink, wherefore didst thou then take away my pitcher?" But Cain said, "Didst thou not find favour in the sight of the Lord thy God?" The Shape answered, "The Lord is God of the living only, the dead have another God." Then the child Enos lifted up his eyes and prayed; but Cain rejoiced secretly in his heart. "Wretched shall they be all the days of their mortal life," exclaimed the Shape, "who sacrifice worthy and acceptable sacrifices to the God of the dead; but after death their toil ceaseth. Woe is me, for I was well beloved by the God of the living, and cruel wert thou, O my brother, who didst
snatch me away from his power and his dominion." Having uttered these words, he rose suddenly, and fled over the <b>sands:</b> and Cain said in his heart, "The curse of the Lord is on <b>me;</b> but who is the God of the dead?" and he ran after the Shape, and the Shape fled shrieking over the sands, and the sands rose like white mists behind the steps of Cain, but the feet of him that was like Abel disturbed not the sands. He greatly outrun Cain, and turning short, he wheeled round, and came again to the rock where they had been sitting, and where Enos still stood; and the <b>child</b> caught hold of his garment as he passed by, and he fell upon the <b>ground. And</b> Cain stopped, and beholding him not, said, "he has passed into the dark woods," and <b>he</b> walked slowly back to the <b>rocks;</b> and when he reached it the child told him that he had caught hold of his garment as he passed by, and that the man had fallen upon the <b>ground:</b> and Cain once more <b>sate</b> beside him, and <b>said,</b> "Abel, my brother, I would lament for thee, but that the spirit within me is withered, and burnt up with extreme agony. Now, I pray thee, by thy <b>flocks,</b> and by thy pastures, and by the quiet rivers which thou <b>lovedst</b>, that thou tell me all that thou knowest. Who is the God of the dead? where doth he make his dwelling? what sacrifices are acceptable unto him? for I have offered, but have not been received; I have prayed, and have not been heard; and how can I be afflicted more than I already am?" The Shape arose and <b>answered,</b> "O that thou hadst had pity on me as I will have pity on thee. Follow me, <b>Son</b> of Adam! and bring thy child with <b>thee!</b>"</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td>And they three passed over the white sands between the rocks, silent as <b>the</b> shadows.</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td><i><b>Poetical Works</b></i> <b>(1834)</b></td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
<td valign="top" width="33%" height="100%">
<table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4" height="100%">
<tr bgcolor="#FFFFFF" valign="top">
<td>
<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="2">
<tr valign="top">
<td><b><i>Bijou</i> Literary Annual (1828)</b></td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td>"A little further, O my father, yet a little further, and we shall come into the open <b>moonlight!</b><b>"</b> Their road was through a forest of fir-trees; at its entrance the trees stood at distances from each other, and the path was broad, and the <b>moonlight,</b> and the moonlight shadows reposed upon it, and appeared quietly to inhabit that solitude. But soon the path winded and became narrow; the sun at high noon sometimes speckled, but never illumined it, and now it was dark as a cavern.</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td>"It is dark, O my father!" said Enos, "but the path under our feet is smooth and soft, and we shall soon come out into the open moonlight. <b>Ah, why dost thou groan so deeply?</b>"</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td>"<b>Lead on my child," said Cain,</b> "guide me, little <b>child.</b>" And the innocent little child clasped a finger of the hand which had murdered the righteous Abel, and he guided his father. "The fir branches drip upon <b>thee</b> my son."<b>&#8212;</b>"Yea, pleasantly, father, for I ran fast and eagerly to bring thee the pitcher and the cake, and my body is not yet cool. How happy the squirrels are that feed on these <b>fir trees</b>! they leap from bough to bough, and the old squirrels play round their young ones in the nest. I clomb a tree yesterday at noon, O my father, that I might play with them, but they <b>leapt</b> away from the branches, even to the slender twigs did they leap, and in a moment I beheld them on another tree. Why, O my father, would they not play with me? <b>Is it because we are not so happy as they? Is it because I groan sometimes even as thou groanest?"</b> Then Cain stopped, and stifling his <b>groans,</b> he sank to the earth, and the child Enos stood in the darkness beside <b>him; and</b> Cain lifted up his <b>voice,</b> and cried bitterly, and said, "The Mighty One that persecuteth me is on this side and on that; he pursueth my soul like the wind, like the sand-blast he passeth through me; he is around me even as the <b>air,</b> O that I might be utterly no more! I desire to die&#8212;yea, the things that never had life, neither move they upon the earth&#8212;<b>behold</b> they seem precious to mine eyes. O that a man might live without the breath of his <b>nostrils, so</b> I might abide in <b>darkness</b> and blackness, and an empty space! Yea, I would lie down, I would not rise, neither would I stir my limbs till I became as the rock in the den of the lion, on which the young lion resteth his head whilst he sleepeth. For the torrent that roareth far off hath a <b>voice;</b> and the clouds in heaven look terribly on me; the <b>mighty one</b> who is against me speaketh in the wind of the cedar grove; and in silence am I dried
up." Then Enos spake to his father, "<b>Arise</b> my father, arise, we are but a little way from the place where I found the cake and the <b>pitcher;" and</b> Cain said, "How knowest thou?" and the child answered&#8212;"<b>Behold,</b> the bare rocks are a few of thy strides distant from the forest; and while even now thou wert lifting up thy voice, I heard the echo." Then the child took hold of his father, as if he would raise <b>him,</b> and Cain being faint and feeble rose slowly on his knees and pressed himself against the trunk of a fir, and stood upright and followed the child. <b>The</b> path was dark till within three strides' length of its <b>termination</b> when it turned suddenly; the thick black trees formed a low arch, and the moonlight appeared for a moment like a dazzling portal. Enos ran before and stood in the open air; and when Cain, his father, emerged from the <b>darkness</b> the child was <b>affrighted, for</b> the mighty limbs of Cain were wasted as by fire; his hair was <b>black, and matted into loathly curls,</b> and his countenance <b>was dark and wild, and</b> told in a strange and terrible language of agonies that had been, and were, and were still to continue to be.</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
The scene around was desolate; as far as the eye could <b>reach,</b> it was <b>desolate;</b> the bare rocks faced each other, and left a long and wide interval of <b>their</b> white sand. You might wander on and look round and round, and peep into the crevices of the <b>rocks,</b> and discover nothing that acknowledged the influence of the seasons. There was no spring, no summer, no <b>autumn,</b> and the winter's <b>snow</b> that would have been lovely, fell not on these hot rocks and scorching sands. Never morning lark had poised himself over this desert; but the huge serpent often hissed there beneath the talons of the vulture, and the vulture screamed, his wings imprisoned within the coils of the serpent. The pointed and shattered summits of the ridges of the rocks made a rude mimicry of human concerns, and seemed to <b>prophecy</b> mutely of things that then were not; steeples, and battlements, and ships with naked masts. As far from the wood as a boy might sling a pebble of the brook, there was one rock by itself at a small distance from the main ridge. It had been precipitated there perhaps by the <b>terrible</b> groan the <b>earth gave</b> when our first father fell. Before you approached, it appeared to lie flat on the ground, but its base slanted from its point, and between its <b>points</b> and the sands a tall man might stand upright. It was here that Enos had found the pitcher and cake, and to this place he led his father. But ere they <b>arrived there</b> they beheld a human <b>shape;</b> his back was towards them, and they were <b>coming up unperceived</b> when they heard him smite his breast and cry aloud, "<b>Wo,</b> is me! <b>wo,</b> is me! I must never die again, and yet I am perishing with thirst and hunger."</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td><b><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
The face of Cain turned pale; but Enos said,</b> "Ere yet I could speak, I am sure, O my father, that I heard that voice. Have not I often said that I remembered a sweet <b>voice.</b> O my father! this is <b>it;</b>" and Cain trembled exceedingly. The voice was sweet indeed, but it was thin and <b>querulous like</b> that of a feeble slave in misery, who despairs altogether, yet can not refrain himself from weeping and lamentation. <b>Enos crept</b> softly round the base of the rock, <b>and</b> stood before the stranger, and looked up into his face. And the Shape shrieked, and turned round, and Cain beheld him, that his limbs and his face were those of his brother <b>Abel</b> whom he had <b>killed; and</b> Cain stood like one who struggles in his sleep because of the exceeding terribleness of a <b>dream; and ere he had recovered himself from the tumult of his agitation,</b> the <b>Shape</b> fell at his feet, and embraced his knees, and cried out with a bitter outcry, "Thou eldest born of Adam, whom Eve, my mother, brought forth, cease to torment me! I was feeding my flocks in green pastures by the side of quiet rivers, and thou killedst me; and now I am in misery." Then Cain closed his eyes, and hid them with his <b>hands&#8212;</b> and again he opened his eyes, and looked around him, and said to <b>Enos</b> "What beholdest thou? Didst thou hear a <b>voice,</b> my son?" "Yes, my father, I beheld a man in unclean garments, and he uttered a sweet voice, full of lamentation." Then Cain raised up the <b>shape</b> that was like Abel, and <b>said,</b> "The <b>creator</b> of our father, who had respect unto thee, and unto thy offering, wherefore hath he forsaken thee?" Then the Shape shrieked a second time, and rent his garment, and his naked skin was like the white sands beneath their feet; and he shrieked yet a third time, and threw himself on his face upon the sand that was black with the shadow of the rock, and Cain and Enos sate beside him; the child by his right
hand, and Cain by his left. They were all three under the rock, and within the shadow. The Shape that was like Abel raised himself up, and spake to the <b>child;</b> "I know where the cold waters <b>are,</b> but I may not drink, wherefore didst thou then take away my pitcher?" But Cain said, "Didst thou not find favour in the sight of the Lord thy God?" The Shape answered, "The Lord is God of the living only, the dead have another God." Then the child Enos lifted up his eyes and prayed; but Cain rejoiced secretly in his heart. "Wretched shall they be all the days of their mortal life," exclaimed the Shape, "who sacrifice worthy and acceptable sacrifices to the God of the dead; but after death their toil ceaseth. Woe is me, for I was well beloved by the God of the living, and cruel wert thou, O my brother, who didst snatch me away from his power and his dominion." Having uttered these words, he rose suddenly, and fled over the <b>sands;</b> and Cain said in his heart, "The curse of the Lord is on <b>me&#8212;</b>but who is the God of the dead?" and he ran after the Shape, and the Shape fled shrieking over the sands, and the sands rose like white mists behind the steps of Cain, but the feet of him that was like Abel disturbed not the sands. He greatly outrun Cain, and turning short, he wheeled round, and came again to the rock where they had been sitting, and where Enos still stood; and the <b>Child</b> caught hold of his garment as he passed by, and he fell upon the <b>ground; and</b> Cain stopped, and beholding him not, said, "he has passed into the dark woods," and walked slowly back to the <b>rocks,</b> and when he reached it the child told him that he had caught hold of his garment as he passed by, and that the man had fallen upon the <b>ground;</b> and Cain once more <b>sat</b> beside him, and <b>said&#8212;</b>"Abel, my brother, I would lament for thee, but that the spirit within me is withered, and burnt up with extreme agony. Now, I pray thee, by thy
<b>flocks</b> and by thy pastures, and by the quiet rivers which thou <b>lovest</b>, that thou tell me all that thou knowest. Who is the God of the dead? where doth he make his dwelling? what sacrifices are acceptable unto him? for I have offered, but have not been received; I have prayed, and have not been heard; and how can I be afflicted more than I already am?" The Shape arose and <b>answered&#8212;</b>"O that thou hadst had pity on me as I will have pity on thee. Follow me, <b>son</b> of Adam! and bring thy child with <b>thee:" and</b> they three passed over the white sands between the rocks, silent as <b>their</b> shadows.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><i><b>Bijou</b></i> <b>(1828)</b></td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>&#160;</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</table></div></div></div><section class="field field-name-field-parent-section field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Section:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/node/31535">Electronic Editions</a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-field-resource-index field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Resource:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/editions/cain/index.html">&quot;Wanderings of Cain&quot; </a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-3 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/samuel-taylor-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Samuel Taylor Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1180" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Jack Stillinger</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1354" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Christabel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1479" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Raphael</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5762" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wanderings of Cain</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5763" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Canto II</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5764" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">prose</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5765" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">1797</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5766" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Poetical Works</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5767" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bijou literary annual</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5768" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Aids to Reflection</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5769" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ancient Mariner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5770" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">J.C.C. Mays</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5771" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">versioning</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5772" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">poetical fragment</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/tags/ernest-hartley-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ernest Hartley Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5774" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ghost of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5775" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain: a mystery</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5776" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wandering Jew</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5777" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">British Library manuscripts</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/coleridge-notebook" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Coleridge notebook</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5779" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Valley of Rocks</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5780" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">William Bartram</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5781" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Gessner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5782" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Death of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5783" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain and Abel</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5784" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Enos</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-52 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Section:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/section/editions/the-wanderings-of-cain" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Wanderings of Cain</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-opencalais-person-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Person:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/person/abel" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Abel</a></li></ul></section>Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:04:33 +0000rc-admin16434 at http://www.rc.umd.eduNotebook Verses http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/cain/notebook.html
<div class="field field-name-field-published field-type-date field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth"><span class="date-display-single" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth" content="2003-05-01T00:00:00-04:00">May 2003</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p class="title3">Notebook Fragment<br/>
<span class="title2">[Notebook 22, British Library Add. ms 47,520]<a href="#note*"><b>*</b></a></span></p>
<p align="left">The Child is born, the Child must die / Among the desert Sands / And we too all must die of Thirst / for not a Drop remains. But wither do we retire / to Heaven or possibility of Heaven / But this to darkness, Cold, &amp; tho' not positive Torment, yet positive Evil&#8212;Eternal Absence from Communion with the Creator. O how often have the Sands at night roar'd &amp; whitened<a href="#note1"><b class="notes">[1]</b></a> like a burst of of [sic] waters / O that indeed they were! Then full of enthusiastic faith kneels &amp; prays, &amp; in holy frenzy covers the child with sand. In the name of the Father &amp;c &amp;c / &#8212;Twas done / the Infant died / the blessed Sand retired, each particle to itself, conglomerating, &amp; shrinking from the profane sand / the Sands shrank away from it, &amp; left a pit / still hardening &amp; hardening, at length shot up a fountain large &amp; mighty</p>
<p align="left">[? How]<a href="#note2"><b class="notes">[2]</b></a> wide around its Spray, the rain-bow plays upon the Stream &amp; the Spray&#8212;but lo! another brighter, O far far more bright / it hangs over the head of a glorious Child like a floating veil (vide Raphael's God)<span><a href="#note3"><b class="notes">[3]</b></a></span>&#8212;the Soul arises they drink, &amp; fill their Skins, &amp; depart rejoicing&#8212;O Blessed the day when that good man &amp; all his Company came to Heaven Gate &amp; the Child&#8212;then an angel&#8212;rushed out to receive them&#8212;<br/>
<br/></p>
<h4>Notes</h4>
<p><a name="note*"> </a><br/></p>
<p><b>[*]</b> Notebook 22 (11 x 18 cm). Written across three pages near the back of the notebook, upside down and continuing towards the front. The first two sides (on facing pages) are written in portrait (with a soft page break at "covers / the child with sand") . The third side, beginning "How wide," is written in landscape in a deteriorating script. Left and right margins increase, as if the writer is avoiding an object resting on the page, possibly the source of the small stain in the bottom right quarter.<br/></p>
<p><a name="note1" id="note1"> </a></p>
<p><b>[1]</b> This phrase appears as "Roaring and Whitening" in the cancelled passage to Book V of the <i>Five Book Prelude</i> (see William Wordsworth, <i>The Five Book Prelude</i>, ed. Duncan Wu [Oxford: Blackwell, 1997] Appendix 1, p. 203 line 120). Wordsworth's struggle with this portion near the end of his planned work seems to have been the catalyst for his sudden decision to recast it in thirteen books. Coleridge was given a revised version of Books I-IV and the portion in question (known as the 'analogy passage had been cancelled by the time the Thirteen Book version was complete in 1805. The appearance of the phrase "roar'd and whitened" in CN2780, then, offers compelling evidence to suggest that Coleridge read or heard the analogy passage on his return from Italy in 1806.<br/></p>
<p><a name="note2" id="note2"> </a></p>
<p><b>[2]</b> The "H" character looks quite similar to Coleridge's "Th" construction; however, Coburn's reading of "How" fits the sentence.<br/></p>
<p><a name="note3" id="note3"> </a></p>
<p><b>[3]</b> "Raphael's God": this is likely a reference to Raphael's fresco, <i>La Disputa</i>, in the Vatican.<br/></p></div></div></div><section class="field field-name-field-parent-section field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Section:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/node/31535">Electronic Editions</a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-field-resource-index field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Resource:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/editions/cain/index.html">&quot;Wanderings of Cain&quot; </a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-3 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/samuel-taylor-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Samuel Taylor Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1180" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Jack Stillinger</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1354" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Christabel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1479" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Raphael</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5762" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wanderings of Cain</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5763" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Canto II</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5764" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">prose</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5765" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">1797</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5766" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Poetical Works</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5767" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bijou literary annual</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5768" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Aids to Reflection</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5769" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ancient Mariner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5770" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">J.C.C. Mays</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5771" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">versioning</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5772" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">poetical fragment</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/tags/ernest-hartley-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ernest Hartley Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5774" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ghost of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5775" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain: a mystery</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5776" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wandering Jew</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5777" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">British Library manuscripts</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/coleridge-notebook" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Coleridge notebook</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5779" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Valley of Rocks</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5780" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">William Bartram</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5781" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Gessner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5782" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Death of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5783" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain and Abel</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5784" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Enos</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-52 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Section:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/section/editions/the-wanderings-of-cain" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Wanderings of Cain</a></li></ul></section>Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:04:23 +0000rc-admin16432 at http://www.rc.umd.edu"Wanderings of Cain" http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/cain/index.html
<div class="field field-name-field-index-banner field-type-image field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><figure class="clearfix field-item even"><img typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-index-banner" src="http://www.rc.umd.edu/sites/default/files/styles/index_banner/public/index_banner%5B1%5D_6.jpg?itok=ScugnjVK" width="640" height="213" alt="The Wanderings of Cain, Edited by N. Santilli" title="The Wanderings of Cain, Edited by N. Santilli" /></figure></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <div id="IndexContent">
<h2 class="TOC">Table of Contents</h2>
<ul id="TOCContent">
<div class="LargeObject"><a href="/editions/cain/intro.html">Introduction to the Electronic Edition</a></div>
<div class="LargeObject">Text Fragments (individual fragments)</div>
<div class="object"><a href="/editions/cain/preface.html">Prefatory Note (1828)</a></div>
<div class="object">Canto II</div>
<li style="margin-left:25px;" class="EssayTitle"><a href="/editions/cain/1828canto2.html">1828</a></li>
<li style="margin-left:25px;" class="EssayTitle"><a href="/editions/cain/bijoucanto2.html">1828 (<i>Bijou</i>)</a></li>
<li style="margin-left:25px;" class="EssayTitle"><a href="/editions/cain/1834canto2.html">1834</a></li>
<div class="object">Verse</div>
<li style="margin-left:25px;" class="EssayTitle"><a href="/editions/cain/stcbyron.html">1815</a></li>
<li style="margin-left:25px;" class="EssayTitle"><a href="/editions/cain/verse1825.html">1825</a></li>
<li style="margin-left:25px;" class="EssayTitle"><a href="/editions/cain/stcverses.html">1834</a></li>
<div class="object"><a href="/editions/cain/notebook.html">Notebook Fragment</a></div>
<div class="object">Folio Fragments</div>
<li style="margin-left:25px;" class="EssayTitle"><a href="/editions/cain/stcfolio.html">folio (recto)</a></li>
<li style="margin-left:25px;" class="EssayTitle"><a href="/editions/cain/stcfoliov.html">folio (verso)</a></li>
<div class="LargeObject">Parallel Readings (text fragments side-by-side)</div>
<li style="margin-left:25px;" class="EssayTitle"><a href="/editions/cain/parallelcanto2.html">Canto II</a></li>
<li style="margin-left:25px;" class="EssayTitle"><a href="/editions/cain/parallelverse.html">Verse</a></li>
<div class="LargeObject">Reading Text (fragments knitted into single text)</div>
<li style="margin-left:25px;" class="EssayTitle"><a href="/editions/cain/readingtext.html">The Wanderings of Cain</a></li>
<div class="LargeObject">Other Resources</div>
<li style="margin-left:25px;" class="EssayTitle"><a href="/editions/cain/bibliog.html">Select Bibliography</a></li>
<li style="margin-left:25px;" class="EssayTitle"><a href="/editions/cain/cain_about.html">About This Edition</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-published field-type-date field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2003-05-01T00:00:00-04:00">May 2003</span></div></div></div><section class="field field-name-field-main-author field-type-entityreference field-label-inline clearfix view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Main Author:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/person/coleridge-samuel-taylor">Coleridge, Samuel Taylor</a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-field-original-publication-date field-type-date field-label-inline clearfix view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Original publication date:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="1828-01-01T00:00:00-05:00">1828</span></div><div class="field-item odd"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="1834-01-01T00:00:00-05:00">1834</span></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-field-edited-by field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Edited By:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/person/santilli-nikki">Santilli, Nikki</a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-field-resource-technical-editor field-type-entityreference field-label-inline clearfix view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Resource Technical Editor:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/person/byrne-joseph">Byrne, Joseph</a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-field-parent-section field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Section:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/node/31535">Electronic Editions</a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-3 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/samuel-taylor-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Samuel Taylor Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1180" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Jack Stillinger</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1354" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Christabel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1479" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Raphael</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5762" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wanderings of Cain</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5763" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Canto II</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5764" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">prose</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5765" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">1797</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5766" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Poetical Works</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5767" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bijou literary annual</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5768" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Aids to Reflection</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5769" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ancient Mariner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5770" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">J.C.C. Mays</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5771" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">versioning</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5772" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">poetical fragment</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/tags/ernest-hartley-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ernest Hartley Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5774" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ghost of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5775" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain: a mystery</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5776" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wandering Jew</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5777" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">British Library manuscripts</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/coleridge-notebook" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Coleridge notebook</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5779" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Valley of Rocks</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5780" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">William Bartram</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5781" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Gessner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5782" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Death of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5783" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain and Abel</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5784" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Enos</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-opencalais-person-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Person:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/person/samuel-taylor-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Samuel Taylor Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/person/jack-stillinger" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Jack Stillinger</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/person/ernest-hartley-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ernest Hartley Coleridge</a></li></ul></section>Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:04:16 +0000rc-admin16428 at http://www.rc.umd.eduAbout this Edition http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/cain/cain_about.html
<div class="field field-name-field-published field-type-date field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth"><span class="date-display-single" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth" content="2003-05-01T00:00:00-04:00">May 2003</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><div class="title3 c1"><h3>About This Edition</h3></div>
<p class="c2"><b>The Editor</b>:</p>
<p class="c2">N. Santilli is the author of <i>Such Rare Citings: The Prose Poem in English Literature</i> (Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2002). She is an independent scholar working in London.</p>
<p class="c2"><a name="text" id="text"> </a><b>The Text:</b></p>
<p class="c2">This edition brings together the various fragments in prose and verse that Coleridge wrote towards his unfinished project, <i>The Wanderings of Cain</i>. It seeks to correct standard presentations of the work, which consist solely of Canto II. Contributing texts are taken from a letter to Lord Byron, a notebook, <i>The Bijou</i> literary annual, a footnote in <i>Aids to Reflection</i> and a folio manuscript. Canto II is traditionally regarded as a curiosity that was abandoned in favor of the similar, yet more successful, "Rime of the Ancient Mariner." However, the 30-year span of work in progress between initial composition and part-publication, as well as developments in genre and ideological perspective, show that Coleridge invested <i>The Wanderings of Cain</i> with more importance than his commentators have since attributed to it.</p>
<p class="c2">The source texts are considered to be in the public domain. Please refer to the <a href="/editions/cain/bibliog.html">bibliography</a> for a complete list. The texts of the notebook and the folios are the editor's own transcriptions of the original manuscripts held at the British Library (Notebook 22; Egerton 2800 f1 &amp; f1v) and appear here by permission. Photographs of the Canto II manuscripts and a full account of the work in relation to the development of the prose poem genre in England are included in <i>Such Rare Citings</i>.</p>
<p>The editor would like to record her personal gratitude to Steven Whalen, John Woolford, Robert Renton and Danielle Eubank for their assistance at various stages of this project.</p>
<p class="c2"><a name="image" id="image"> </a><b>The Image</b>:</p>
<p class="c2">The cover image for this edition is a detail from William Blake's "The Voice of Abel's Blood" and is a depiction of Cain lying over the body of his brother (cf. <i>Jerusalem</i> 94.). The engraving illustrates the only known drama in Blake's mature writings, <i>The Ghost of Abel</i> (1822), which was composed in response to Lord Byron's play, <i>Cain: a mystery</i> (1821) and dedicated to him.<a href="/editions/cain/byron_cain.html"><b>*</b></a> The image is used courtesy of <a href="http://www.blakearchive.org">The Blake Archive.</a></p>
<p class="c2"><a name="design" id="design"> </a><b>The Design</b>: This hypertext edition was designed and marked up at the University of Maryland by <a href="mailto:byrnejo@wam.umd.edu">Joseph Byrne</a>, Site Manager at Romantic Circles. Making extensive use of tables and style sheets for layout and presentation, it will work best when viewed with Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator versions 5.0 and 4.7, respectively, and higher. The HTML markup is HTML 4.01/Transitional compliant, as set out by the <a href="http://www.w3c.org/">World Wide Web Consortium</a>.</p></div></div></div><section class="field field-name-field-parent-section field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Section:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/node/31535">Electronic Editions</a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-field-resource-index field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Resource:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/editions/cain/index.html">&quot;Wanderings of Cain&quot; </a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-3 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/samuel-taylor-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Samuel Taylor Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1180" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Jack Stillinger</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1354" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Christabel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1479" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Raphael</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5762" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wanderings of Cain</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5763" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Canto II</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5764" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">prose</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5765" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">1797</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5766" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Poetical Works</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5767" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bijou literary annual</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5768" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Aids to Reflection</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5769" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ancient Mariner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5770" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">J.C.C. Mays</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5771" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">versioning</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5772" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">poetical fragment</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/tags/ernest-hartley-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ernest Hartley Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5774" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ghost of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5775" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain: a mystery</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5776" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wandering Jew</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5777" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">British Library manuscripts</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/coleridge-notebook" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Coleridge notebook</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5779" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Valley of Rocks</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5780" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">William Bartram</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5781" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Gessner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5782" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Death of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5783" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain and Abel</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5784" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Enos</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-52 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Section:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/section/editions/the-wanderings-of-cain" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Wanderings of Cain</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-opencalais-city-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">City:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/city/london" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">London</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-opencalais-person-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Person:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/person/n-santilli" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">N. Santilli</a></li></ul></section>Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:04:08 +0000rc-admin16423 at http://www.rc.umd.eduCanto II (Bijou Literary Annual)http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/cain/bijoucanto2.html
<div class="field field-name-field-published field-type-date field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth"><span class="date-display-single" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth" content="2003-05-01T00:00:00-04:00">May 2003</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p class="title3">Canto II<br/>
<i><span class="title2">Bijou Literary Annual</span></i> <span class="title2">(1828)<a href="#note*" class="notes"><sup><b>*</b></sup></a></span></p>
<p class="c2">"A little further, O my father, yet a little further, and we shall come into the open moonlight!" Their road was through a forest of fir-trees; at its entrance the trees stood at distances from each other, and the path was broad, and the moonlight, and the moonlight shadows reposed upon it, and appeared quietly to inhabit that solitude. But soon the path winded and became narrow; the sun at high noon sometimes speckled, but never illumined it, and now it was dark as a cavern.</p>
<p class="c2">"It is dark, O my father!" said Enos, "but the path under our feet is smooth and soft, and we shall soon come out into the open moonlight. Ah, why dost thou groan so deeply?"</p>
<p class="c2">"Lead on my child," said Cain, "guide me, little child." And the innocent little child clasped a finger of the hand which had murdered the righteous Abel, and he guided his father. "The fir branches drip upon thee my son."&#8212;"Yea, pleasantly, father, for I ran fast and eagerly to bring thee the pitcher and the cake, and my body is not yet cool. How happy the squirrels are that feed on these fir trees! they leap from bough to bough, and the old squirrels play round their young ones in the nest. I clomb a tree yesterday at noon, O my father, that I might play with them, but they leapt away from the branches, even to the slender twigs did they leap, and in a moment I beheld them on another tree. Why, O my father, would they not play with me? Is it because we are not so happy as they? Is it because I groan sometimes even as thou groanest?" Then Cain stopped, and stifling his groans, he sank to the earth, and the child Enos stood in the darkness beside him; and Cain lifted up his voice, and cried bitterly, and said, "The Mighty One that persecuteth me is on this side and on that; he pursueth my soul like the wind, like the sand-blast he passeth through me; he is around me even as the air, O that I might be utterly no more! I desire to die&#8212;yea, the things that never had life, neither move they upon the earth&#8212;behold they seem precious to mine eyes. O that a man might live without the breath of his nostrils, so I might abide in darkness and blackness, and an empty space! Yea, I would lie down, I would not rise, neither would I stir my limbs till I became as the rock in the den of the lion, on which the young lion resteth his head whilst he sleepeth. For the torrent that roareth far off hath a voice; and the clouds in heaven look terribly on me; the mighty one who is against me speaketh in the wind of the cedar grove; and in silence am I dried up." Then Enos spake to his father, "Arise my father, arise, we are but a little way from the place
where I found the cake and the pitcher;" and Cain said, "How knowest thou?" and the child answered&#8212; "Behold, the bare rocks are a few of thy strides distant from the forest; and while even now thou wert lifting up thy voice, I heard the echo." Then the child took hold of his father, as if he would raise him, and Cain being faint and feeble rose slowly on his knees and pressed himself against the trunk of a fir, and stood upright and followed the child. The path was dark till within three strides' length of its termination when it turned suddenly; the thick black trees formed a low arch, and the moonlight appeared for a moment like a dazzling portal. Enos ran before and stood in the open air; and when Cain, his father, emerged from the darkness the child was affrighted, for the mighty limbs of Cain were wasted as by fire; his hair was black, and matted into loathly curls, and his countenance was dark and wild, and told in a strange and terrible language of agonies that had been, and were, and were still to continue to be.</p>
<p class="c2">The scene around was desolate; as far as the eye could reach, it was desolate; the bare rocks faced each other, and left a long and wide interval of their white sand.<a href="#note#"><b class="notes">[#]</b></a> You might wander on and look round and round, and peep into the crevices of the rocks, and discover nothing that acknowledged the influence of the seasons. There was no spring, no summer, no autumn, and the winter's snow that would have been lovely, fell not on these hot rocks and scorching sands. Never morning lark had poised himself over this desert; but the huge serpent often hissed there beneath the talons of the vulture, and the vulture screamed, his wings imprisoned within the coils of the serpent. The pointed and shattered summits of the ridges of the rocks made a rude mimicry of human concerns, and seemed to prophecy mutely of things that then were not; steeples, and battlements, and ships with naked masts. As far from the wood as a boy might sling a pebble of the brook, there was one rock by itself at a small distance from the main ridge. It had been precipitated there perhaps by the terrible groan the earth gave when our first father fell. Before you approached, it appeared to lie flat on the ground, but its base slanted from its point, and between its points and the sands a tall man might stand upright. It was here that Enos had found the pitcher and cake, and to this place he led his father. But ere they arrived there they beheld a human shape; his back was towards them, and they were coming up unperceived when they heard him smite his breast and cry aloud, "Wo, is me! wo, is me! I must never die again, and yet I am perishing with thirst and hunger."</p>
<p class="c2">The face of Cain turned pale; but Enos said, "Ere yet I could speak, I am sure, O my father, that I heard that voice. Have not I often said that I remembered a sweet voice. O my father! this is it;" and Cain trembled exceedingly. The voice was sweet indeed, but it was thin and querulous like that of a feeble slave in misery, who despairs altogether, yet can not refrain himself from weeping and lamentation. Enos crept softly round the base of the rock, and stood before the stranger, and looked up into his face. And the Shape shrieked, and turned round, and Cain beheld him, that his limbs and his face were those of his brother Abel whom he had killed; and Cain stood like one who struggles in his sleep because of the exceeding terribleness of a dream; and ere he had recovered himself from the tumult of his agitation, the Shape fell at his feet, and embraced his knees, and cried out with a bitter outcry, "Thou eldest born of Adam, whom Eve, my mother, brought forth, cease to torment me! I was feeding my flocks in green pastures by the side of quiet rivers, and thou killedst me; and now I am in misery." Then Cain closed his eyes, and hid them with his hands&#8212; and again he opened his eyes, and looked around him, and said to Enos "What beholdest thou? Didst thou hear a voice, my son?" "Yes, my father, I beheld a man in unclean garments, and he uttered a sweet voice, full of lamentation." Then Cain raised up the shape that was like Abel, and said, "The creator of our father, who had respect unto thee, and unto thy offering, wherefore hath he forsaken thee?" Then the Shape shrieked a second time, and rent his garment, and his naked skin was like the white sands beneath their feet; and he shrieked yet a third time, and threw himself on his face upon the sand that was black with the shadow of the rock, and Cain and Enos sate beside him; the child by his right hand, and Cain by his left. They were all three under the rock, and within the shadow. The Shape
that was like Abel raised himself up, and spake to the child; "I know where the cold waters are, but I may not drink, wherefore didst thou then take away my pitcher?" But Cain said, "Didst thou not find favour in the sight of the Lord thy God?" The Shape answered, "The Lord is God of the living only, the dead have another God." Then the child Enos lifted up his eyes and prayed; but Cain rejoiced secretly in his heart. "Wretched shall they be all the days of their mortal life," exclaimed the Shape, "who sacrifice worthy and acceptable sacrifices to the God of the dead; but after death their toil ceaseth. Woe is me, for I was well beloved by the God of the living, and cruel wert thou, O my brother, who didst snatch me away from his power and his dominion." Having uttered these words, he rose suddenly, and fled over the sands; and Cain said in his heart, "The curse of the Lord is on me&#8212; but who is the God of the dead?" and he ran after the Shape, and the Shape fled shrieking over the sands, and the sands rose like white mists behind the steps of Cain, but the feet of him that was like Abel disturbed not the sands. He greatly outrun Cain, and turning short, he wheeled round, and came again to the rock where they had been sitting, and where Enos still stood; and the Child caught hold of his garment as he passed by, and he fell upon the ground; and Cain stopped, and beholding him not, said, "he has passed into the dark woods," and walked slowly back to the rocks, and when he reached it the child told him that he had caught hold of his garment as he passed by, and that the man had fallen upon the ground; and Cain once more sat beside him, and said&#8212; "Abel, my brother, I would lament for thee, but that the spirit within me is withered, and burnt up with extreme agony. Now, I pray thee, by thy flocks and by thy pastures, and by the quiet rivers which thou lovest, that thou tell me all that thou knowest. Who is the God of the dead? where doth he make his dwelling?
what sacrifices are acceptable unto him? for I have offered, but have not been received; I have prayed, and have not been heard; and how can I be afflicted more than I already am?" The Shape arose and answered&#8212; "O that thou hadst had pity on me as I will have pity on thee. Follow me, son of Adam! and bring thy child with thee:" and they three passed over the white sands between the rocks, silent as their shadows.</p>
<h4>Notes</h4>
<p><a name="note*"> </a><br/></p>
<p><b>[*]</b> Canto II was published, apparently without Coleridge's knowledge or consent, in the <i>Bijou</i> of 1828, edited by W. Fraser. As Fraser remarked in his Introduction to Canto II, "Mr Coleridge, in the most liberal manner, permitted the Editor to select what he pleased from all his unpublished MSS., and it will be seen from the 'Wanderings of Cain,' though unfinished, and the other pieces bearing that Gentleman's name, that whenever he may favour the world with a perfect collection of his writings he will adduce new and powerful claims upon its respect." The manuscript had been passed on by Pickering. See Griggs VI:710-12.<br/></p>
<p><a name="note#"> </a><br/></p>
<p><b>[#]</b> <b>Contextual Note:</b> From William Bartram, <i>Travels in North and South Carolina</i> (2nd ed. London: J. Johnson, 1794), 215-16:</p>
<p>"The morning pleasant, we decamped early: proceeding on, rising gently for several miles, over sandy, gravelly ridges, we found ourselves in an elevated, high, open, airy region, somewhat rocky, on the backs of the ridges, which presented to view, on every side, the most dreary, solitary, desert waste I had ever beheld; groups of bare rocks emerging out of the naked gravel and drifts of white sand; the grass thinly scattered and but few trees [. . .] Next we joyfully entered the borders of the level pine forest and savannahs which continued for many miles, never out of sight of little lakes or ponds, environed with illumined meadows, the clear waters sparkling through the tall pines."<a href="/editions/cain/valleyrocks.html"><b>*</b></a><br/></p>
<hr/>
<p class="c2"><a href="/editions/cain/parallelcanto2.html">compare to other versions</a></p>
<p class="c2"><a href="#top">return to top</a></p></div></div></div><section class="field field-name-field-parent-section field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Section:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/node/31535">Electronic Editions</a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-field-resource-index field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Resource:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/editions/cain/index.html">&quot;Wanderings of Cain&quot; </a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-3 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/samuel-taylor-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Samuel Taylor Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1180" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Jack Stillinger</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1354" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Christabel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1479" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Raphael</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5762" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wanderings of Cain</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5763" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Canto II</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5764" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">prose</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5765" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">1797</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5766" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Poetical Works</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5767" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bijou literary annual</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5768" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Aids to Reflection</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5769" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ancient Mariner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5770" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">J.C.C. Mays</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5771" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">versioning</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5772" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">poetical fragment</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/tags/ernest-hartley-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ernest Hartley Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5774" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ghost of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5775" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain: a mystery</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5776" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wandering Jew</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5777" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">British Library manuscripts</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/coleridge-notebook" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Coleridge notebook</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5779" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Valley of Rocks</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5780" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">William Bartram</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5781" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Gessner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5782" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Death of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5783" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain and Abel</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5784" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Enos</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-52 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Section:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/section/editions/the-wanderings-of-cain" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Wanderings of Cain</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-opencalais-person-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Person:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/person/abel" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Abel</a></li></ul></section>Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:03:57 +0000rc-admin16421 at http://www.rc.umd.eduBibliography http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/cain/bibliog.html
<div class="field field-name-field-published field-type-date field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth"><span class="date-display-single" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth" content="2003-05-01T00:00:00-04:00">May 2003</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p class="title3">Selected Bibliography<br/>
<span class="title2">for S. T. Coleridge and <i>The Wanderings of Cain</i></span></p>
<p class="c2"><u><b>Primary Sources:</b></u></p>
<p class="c2"> </p>
<div class="c3">
<p><b>Bartram, William</b>. <i>Travels Through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, The Cherokee Country [&amp;c]</i>. 2nd ed. London: J. Johnson, 1794.</p>
<p><b>Coleridge, Samuel Taylor</b>. <i>Aids to Reflection in the formation of a manly character on the several grounds of Prudence, Morality, and Religion: illustrated by select passages from our elder divines, especially from Archbishop Leighton.</i> London: Taylor and Hessey, 1825.</p>
<p>---. "The Wanderings of Cain: A Fragment by S.T. Coleridge, Esq.," <i>The Bijou; or annual of literature and the arts for 1828</i>. Ed. William Fraser, pp. 17-23.</p>
<p>---. <i>Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.</i> Ed. Earl Leslie Griggs. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1956-71.</p>
<p>---. <i>The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.</i> Vol. 16. <i>Poetical Works</i> I (Reading Text): part 1. Ed. J. C. C. Mays. Bollingen Series LXXV. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.</p>
<p>---. <i>The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.</i> Vol. 16. <i>Poetical Works</i> II (Variorum Text): part 1. Ed. J. C. C. Mays. Bollingen Series LXXV. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.</p>
<p>---. Folio F/FV. British Library manuscript. Egerton 2800 fol. 1- 1v.</p>
<p>---. Notebook 22. British Library. Additional manuscript, 47,520 fols. 88-89.<br/>
<i>The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge</i>. Ed. Kathleen Coburn, 4 vols. London: Routledge &amp; Kegan Paul, 1962.</p>
<p>---. <i>Poetical Works.</i> London: Pickering, 1828; 1834.<br/></p>
</div>
<p class="c4"><u>Secondary Sources:</u></p>
<p class="c2"><b>Ashton</b>, Rosemary. <i>The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: a critical biography.</i> Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.</p>
<p class="c2"><b>Barth</b>, S. J. <i>The Symbolic Imagination: Coleridge and the Romantic Tradition.</i> Princeton: Princeton UP, 1977.</p>
<p class="c2"><b>Beer</b>, John. <i>Coleridge's Poetic Intelligence.</i> London: Macmillan, 1977.</p>
<p class="c2">---. <i>Coleridge the Visionary.</i> London: Chatto &amp; Windus, 1959.</p>
<p class="c2"><b>Beyer</b>, Werner W. <i>The Enchanted Forest.</i> Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1963.</p>
<p class="c2"><b>Brown</b>, Lee Rust. "Coleridge and the Prospect of the Whole," <i>Studies in Romanticism</i> 30 (1991): 235-53</p>
<p class="c2"><b>Fulford</b>, Tim. <i>Coleridge's Figurative Language.</i> London: Macmillan, 1991.</p>
<p class="c2"><b>Fulford</b>, Tim and Morton D. <b>Paley</b>, eds. <i>Coleridge's Visionary Languages: Essays in Honour of J. B. Beer.</i> Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1993.</p>
<p class="c2"><b>Jasper</b>, David. <i>Coleridge as Poet and Religious Thinker.</i> London: Macmillan, 1985.</p>
<p class="c2"><b>Kessler</b>, Edward. <i>Coleridge's Metaphors of Being.</i> Princeton: Princeton UP, 1979.</p>
<p class="c2"><b>Magnuson</b>, Paul. <i>Coleridge's Nightmare Poetry.</i> Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1974.</p>
<p class="c2"><b>McFarland</b>, Thomas. <i>Romanticism and the Forms of Ruin: Wordsworth, Coleridge and the Modalities of Fragmentation.</i> Princeton: Princeton UP, 1981.</p>
<p class="c2"><b>Orsini</b>, G. N. G. <i>Coleridge and German Idealism.</i> Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP and London: Feffer &amp; Simons Inc., 1969.</p>
<p class="c2"><b>Prickett</b>, Stephen. <i>Coleridge and Wordsworth: the Poetry of Growth.</i> Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1970.</p>
<p class="c2"><b>Purton</b>, Valerie. <i>A Coleridge Chronology.</i> London: Macmillan, 1993.</p>
<p class="c2"><b>Santilli</b>, N. <i>Such Rare Citings: The Prose Poem in English Literature.</i> New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2002.</p>
<p class="c2"><b>Schulz</b>, Max F. <i>The Poetic Voices of Coleridge: a Study of His Desire for Spontaneity and Passion for Order.</i> Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1964.</p>
<p class="c2"><b>Shaffer</b>, E. S. <i>"Kubla Khan" and "The Fall of Jerusalem": the Mythological School in Biblical Criticism and Secular Literature 1770-1880.</i> Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1975.</p>
<p class="c2"><b>Stillinger</b>, Jack. <i>Coleridge and Textual Instability: the Multiple Versions of the Major Poems.</i> New York and Oxford: Oxford UP, 1994.</p>
<p class="c2"><b>Sultana</b>, David. <i>Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Malta and Italy.</i> Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969.</p>
<p class="c2"><b>Suther</b>, Marshall. <i>Visions of Xanadu.</i> New York and London: Columbia UP, 1965.</p>
<p class="c2"><b>Wendling</b>, Ronald C. <i>Coleridge's Progress to Christianity: Experience and Authority in Religious Faith.</i> Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 1995.</p>
<p class="c2"><b>Wesling</b>, Donald <i>The New Poetries: Poetic Form Since Coleridge and Wordsworth.</i> Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 1985.</p>
<p class="c2"><b>Wheeler</b>, Kathleen. <i>The Creative Mind in Coleridge's Poetry.</i> London: Heineman, 1981.</p>
<p class="c2"><a href="#top">return to top</a></p></div></div></div><section class="field field-name-field-parent-section field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Section:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/node/31535">Electronic Editions</a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-field-resource-index field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Resource:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/editions/cain/index.html">&quot;Wanderings of Cain&quot; </a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-3 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/samuel-taylor-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Samuel Taylor Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1180" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Jack Stillinger</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1354" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Christabel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1479" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Raphael</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5762" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wanderings of Cain</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5763" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Canto II</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5764" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">prose</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5765" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">1797</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5766" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Poetical Works</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5767" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bijou literary annual</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5768" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Aids to Reflection</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5769" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ancient Mariner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5770" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">J.C.C. Mays</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5771" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">versioning</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5772" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">poetical fragment</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/tags/ernest-hartley-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ernest Hartley Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5774" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ghost of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5775" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain: a mystery</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5776" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wandering Jew</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5777" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">British Library manuscripts</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/coleridge-notebook" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Coleridge notebook</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5779" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Valley of Rocks</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5780" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">William Bartram</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5781" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Gessner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5782" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Death of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5783" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain and Abel</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5784" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Enos</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-52 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Section:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/section/editions/the-wanderings-of-cain" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Wanderings of Cain</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-opencalais-city-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">City:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/city/london" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">London</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/city/cambridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cambridge</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/city/oxford" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Oxford</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-opencalais-organization-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Organization:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/organization/coleridges-poetic-intelligence" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Coleridge&#039;s Poetic Intelligence</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-opencalais-person-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Person:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/person/basil-blackwell" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Basil Blackwell</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-opencalais-provinceorstate-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">ProvinceOrState:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/province-or-state/virginia" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Virginia</a></li></ul></section>Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:03:46 +0000rc-admin16420 at http://www.rc.umd.eduCanto II 1828 http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/cain/1828canto2.html
<div class="field field-name-field-published field-type-date field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth"><span class="date-display-single" property="collex:date" datatype="gYearMonth" content="2003-05-01T00:00:00-04:00">May 2003</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-fulltext"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p class="title3">Canto II<br/>
<span class="title2">[<i>Poetical Works.</i> London: Pickering, 1828]</span></p>
<p class="c2">"A little further, O my father, yet a little further, and we shall come into the open moonlight:" Their road was through a forest of fir-trees; at its entrance the trees stood at distances from each other, and the path was broad, and the moonlight, and the moonlight shadows reposed upon it, and appeared quietly to inhabit that solitude. But soon the path winded and became narrow; the sun at high noon sometimes speckled, but never illumined it, and now it was dark as a cavern.</p>
<p class="c2">"It is dark, O my father!" said Enos, "but the path under our feet is smooth and soft, and we shall soon come out into the open moonlight."</p>
<p class="c2">"Lead on, my child!" said Cain: "guide me, little child!" And the innocent little child clasped a finger of the hand which had murdered the righteous Abel, and he guided his father. "The fir branches drip upon thee, my son." "Yea, pleasantly, father, for I ran fast and eagerly to bring thee the pitcher and the cake, and my body is not yet cool. How happy the squirrels are that feed on these fir trees! they leap from bough to bough, and the old squirrels play round their young ones in the nest. I clomb a tree yesterday at noon, O my father, that I might play with them, but they leapt away from the branches, even to the slender twigs did they leap, and in a moment I beheld them on another tree. Why, O my father, would they not play with me? I would be good to them as thou art good to me: and I groaned to them even as thou groanest when thou givest me to eat, and when thou coverest me at evening, and as often as I stand at thy knee and thine eyes look at me?" Then Cain stopped, and stifling his groans he sank to the earth, and the child Enos stood in the darkness beside him.</p>
<p class="c2">And Cain lifted up his voice and cried bitterly, and said, "The Mighty One that persecuteth me is on this side and on that; he pursueth my soul like the wind, like the sand-blast he passeth through me; he is around me even as the air! O that I might be utterly no more! I desire to die&#8212;yea, the things that never had life, neither move they upon the earth&#8212;behold! they seem precious to mine eyes. O that a man might live without the breath of his nostrils. So I might abide in darkness, and blackness, and an empty space! Yea, I would lie down, I would not rise, neither would I stir my limbs till I became as the rock in the den of the lion, on which the young lion resteth his head whilst he sleepeth. For the torrent that roareth far off hath a voice; and the clouds in heaven look terribly on me; the mighty one who is against me speaketh in the wind of the cedar grove; and in silence am I dried up." Then Enos spake to his father, "Arise my father, arise, we are but a little way from the place where I found the cake and the pitcher." And Cain said, "How knowest thou?" and the child answered&#8212;"Behold the bare rocks are a few of thy strides distant from the forest; and while even now thou wert lifting up thy voice, I heard the echo." Then the child took hold of his father, as if he would raise him: and Cain being faint and feeble rose slowly on his knees and pressed himself against the trunk of a fir, and stood upright and followed the child.</p>
<p class="c2">The path was dark till within three strides' length of its termination, when it turned suddenly; the thick black trees formed a low arch, and the moonlight appeared for a moment like a dazzling portal. Enos ran before and stood in the open air; and when Cain, his father, emerged from the darkness, the child was affrighted. For the mighty limbs of Cain were wasted as by fire; his hair was as the matted curls on the Bison's forehead, and so glared his fierce and sullen eye beneath: and the black abundant locks on either side, a rank and tangled mass, were stained and scorched, as though the grasp of a burning iron hand had striven to rend them; and his countenance told in a strange and terrible language of agonies that had been, and were, and were still to continue to be.</p>
<p class="c2">The scene around was desolate; as far as the eye could reach it was desolate: the bare rocks faced each other, and left a long and wide interval of thin white sand.<a href="#note#"><b class="notes">[#]</b></a> You might wander on and look round and round, and peep into the crevices of the rocks and discover nothing that acknowledged the influence of the seasons. There was no spring, no summer, no autumn: and the winter's snow, that would have been lovely, fell not on these hot rocks and scorching sands. Never morning lark had poised himself over this desert; but the huge serpent often hissed there beneath the talons of the vulture, and the vulture screamed, his wings imprisoned within the coils of the serpent. The pointed and shattered summits of the ridges of the rocks made a rude mimicry of human concerns, and seemed to prophecy mutely of things that then were not; steeples, and battlements, and ships with naked masts. As far from the wood as a boy might sling a pebble of the brook, there was one rock by itself at a small distance from the main ridge. It had been precipitated there perhaps by the groan which the Earth uttered when our first father fell. Before you approached, it appeared to lie flat on the ground, but its base slanted from its point, and between its point and the sands a tall man might stand upright. It was here that Enos had found the pitcher and cake, and to this place he led his father. But ere they had reached the rock they beheld a human shape: his back was towards them, and they were advancing unperceived, when they heard him smite his breast and cry aloud, "Wo, is me! wo, is me! I must never die again, and yet I am perishing with thirst and hunger."</p>
<p class="c2">Pallid, as the reflection of the sheeted lightning on the heavy-sailing Night-cloud, became the face of Cain; but the child Enos took hold of the shaggy skin, his Father's robe, and raised his eyes to his Father, and listening whispered, "Ere yet I could speak, I am sure, O my father, that I heard that voice. Have not I often said that I remembered a sweet voice. O my father! this is it:" and Cain trembled exceedingly. The voice was sweet indeed, but it was thin and querulous like that of a feeble slave in misery, who despairs altogether, yet can not refrain himself from weeping and lamentation. And, behold! Enos glided forward, and creeping softly round the base of the rock, stood before the stranger, and looked up into his face. And the Shape shrieked, and turned round, and Cain beheld him, that his limbs and his face were those of his brother ABEL whom he had killed! And Cain stood like one who struggles in his sleep because of the exceeding terribleness of a dream.</p>
<p class="c2">Thus as he stood in silence and darkness of Soul, the SHAPE fell at his feet, and embraced his knees, and cried out with a bitter outcry, "Thou eldest born of Adam, whom Eve, my mother, brought forth, cease to torment me! I was feeding my flocks in green pastures by the side of quiet rivers, and thou killedst me; and now I am in misery." Then Cain closed his eyes, and hid them with his hands; and again he opened his eyes, and looked around him, and said to Enos, "What beholdest thou? Didst thou hear a voice my son?" "Yes, my father, I beheld a man in unclean garments, and he uttered a sweet voice, full of lamentation." Then Cain raised up the Shape that was like Abel, and said. "The Creator of our father, who had respect unto thee, and unto thy offering, wherefore hath he forsaken thee?" Then the Shape shrieked a second time, and rent his garment, and his naked skin was like the white sands beneath their feet; and he shrieked yet a third time, and threw himself on his face upon the sand that was black with the shadow of the rock, and Cain and Enos sate beside him; the child by his right hand, and Cain by his left. They were all three under the rock, and within the shadow. The Shape that was like Abel raised himself up, and spake to the child; "I know where the cold waters are but I may not drink, wherefore didst thou then take away my pitcher?" But Cain said, "Didst thou not find favour in the sight of the Lord thy God?" The Shape answered, "The Lord is God of the living only, the dead have another God." Then the child Enos lifted up his eyes and prayed; but Cain rejoiced secretly in his heart. "Wretched shall they be all the days of their mortal life," exclaimed the Shape, "who sacrifice worthy and acceptable sacrifices to the God of the dead; but after death their toil ceaseth. Woe is me, for I was well beloved by the God of the living, and cruel wert thou, O my brother, who didst snatch me away from his power and his dominion." Having uttered these
words, he rose suddenly, and fled over the sands; and Cain said in his heart, "The curse of the Lord is on me; but who is the God of the dead?" and he ran after the Shape, and the Shape fled shrieking over the sands, and the sands rose like white mists behind the steps of Cain, but the feet of him that was like Abel disturbed not the sands. He greatly outrun Cain, and turning short, he wheeled round, and came again to the rock where they had been sitting, and where Enos still stood; and the child caught hold of his garment as he passed by, and he fell upon the ground. And Cain stopped, and beholding him not, said, "he has passed into the dark woods," and he walked slowly back to the rocks; and when he reached it the child told him that he had caught hold of his garment as he passed by, and that the man had fallen upon the ground; and Cain once more sat beside him, and said, "Abel, my brother, I would lament for thee, but that the spirit within me is withered, and burnt up with extreme agony. Now, I pray thee, by thy flocks, and by thy pastures, and by the quiet rivers which thou lovedst, that thou tell me all that thou knowest. Who is the God of the dead? where doth he make his dwelling? what sacrifices are acceptable unto him? for I have offered, but have not been received; I have prayed, and have not been heard; and how can I be afflicted more than I already am?" The Shape arose and answered, "O that thou hadst had pity on me as I will have pity on thee. Follow me, Son of Adam! and bring thy child with thee!"</p>
<p class="c2">And they three passed over the white sands between the rocks, silent as the shadows.</p>
<h4>Notes</h4>
<p><a name="note#"> </a><br/></p>
<p><b>[#]</b> <b>Contextual Note:</b> From William Bartram, <i>Travels in North and South Carolina</i> (2nd ed. London: J. Johnson, 1794), 215-16:</p>
<p>"The morning pleasant, we decamped early: proceeding on, rising gently for several miles, over sandy, gravelly ridges, we found ourselves in an elevated, high, open, airy region, somewhat rocky, on the backs of the ridges, which presented to view, on every side, the most dreary, solitary, desert waste I had ever beheld; groups of bare rocks emerging out of the naked gravel and drifts of white sand; the grass thinly scattered and but few trees [. . .] Next we joyfully entered the borders of the level pine forest and savannahs which continued for many miles, never out of sight of little lakes or ponds, environed with illumined meadows, the clear waters sparkling through the tall pines."<a href="/editions/cain/valleyrocks.html"><b>*</b></a><br/></p>
<hr/>
<p class="c2"><a href="/editions/cain/parallelcanto2.html">compare to other versions</a></p>
<p class="c2"><a href="#top">return to top</a></p></div></div></div><section class="field field-name-field-parent-section field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Section:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/node/31535">Electronic Editions</a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-field-resource-index field-type-entityreference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Parent Resource:&nbsp;</h2><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/editions/cain/index.html">&quot;Wanderings of Cain&quot; </a></div></div></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-3 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/samuel-taylor-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Samuel Taylor Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1180" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Jack Stillinger</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1354" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Christabel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1479" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Raphael</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5762" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wanderings of Cain</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5763" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Canto II</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5764" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">prose</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5765" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">1797</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5766" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Poetical Works</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5767" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bijou literary annual</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5768" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Aids to Reflection</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5769" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ancient Mariner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5770" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">J.C.C. Mays</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5771" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">versioning</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5772" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">poetical fragment</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/tags/ernest-hartley-coleridge" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ernest Hartley Coleridge</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5774" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Ghost of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5775" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain: a mystery</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5776" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wandering Jew</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5777" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">British Library manuscripts</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/tags/coleridge-notebook" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Coleridge notebook</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5779" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Valley of Rocks</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5780" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">William Bartram</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5781" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Gessner</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5782" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Death of Abel</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5783" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cain and Abel</a></li><li class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5784" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Enos</a></li></ul></section><section class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-52 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above view-mode-fulltext"><h2 class="field-label">Section:&nbsp;</h2><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/category/section/editions/the-wanderings-of-cain" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Wanderings of Cain</a></li></ul></section>Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:03:23 +0000rc-admin16418 at http://www.rc.umd.edu